Re: Windows virus on mac is it possible?


Wes Groleau wrote:
Erik Richard Sørensen wrote:
Seems as if it has been a 'Word macro virus'. They can do nothing to the system itself, but can really harm any Word file on a Mac - or even

What do you mean by the "system itself" ?

Word and Excel macros are written in Visual Basic for Applications.

Is the VBA on the Mac significantly crippled compared to Windows?

No, i find it the opposite way. Windows Word VBA macros and scripting are worse thant those written with the older versions of word on a Mac... - Word2008 Mac has no VBA language, but can still recognize VBA from a Windows version of Word.

I spent a few years writing and maintaining sophisticated programs
embedded in Word and Excel. VBA can search directories, delete files,
create files, invoke programs, read files as binary or text, create
objects gigabytes in size, make system calls, ....

Two reasons Word macro malware hasn't done much damage on Mac OS X:

1. Most of it assumed that all filenames start with "C:\"

2. Most Word users don't open strange Word files in a privileged
account (and this reason does not apply to OS 9)

Of course not, but if you get a Word file fro a trusted person with inlayed macros and he/she has gotten one of those addressbook vira, then it can just lay and wait to resend your saved messages.

cheers, Erik Richard

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Erik Richard Sørensen, Member of ADC, <mac-manNOSP@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Text Processing - www.nisus.com
OpenOffice.org - The Modern Productivity Solution - www.openoffice.org
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