[svlug] MSWord viruses?

[dfox@belvdere.vip.best.com]

> I was under the impression that Word and Excel were vehicles for
> viruses, although not as easily as VBscript.  I also recall that

Apart from their more 'legitimate' uses, both Word and Excel can
carry viruses, although characterizing them as a 'vehicle' for
viruses may engender the wrong impression. It is possible, though, 
for Word and Excel to have autostart macros -- code that gets run when
the document is opened -- and this code has the potential of
doing damage. Many email 'viruses' have been distributed as Word or
Excel documents. They have the potential of causing less damage than
other viruses (like the odd executable) because not everyone who
runs Windows has MS Office.

Sure, you're more fortunate opening them up on your Linux box, especially
since you're running at an unprivileged level, the virus can do 
less damage.

> Word documents can contain old, perhaps confidential, versions of
> document text.  Am I imagining all this, or are there readings or

I'm not quite sure, but I think the "Save Version" feature of 
Word would place the text of said version into a special part of
the file, rather than as a separate file. I don't use Word all
that much. 

> --Rick Kwan

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