Question

Have any of you had experience with a computer virus? Do you know how you got it? How did you "fix" it? Specifically have any of you received a virus from a macro? Why would you not want to use the highest security level in Access so that no macros are allowed?

Answer 1

A computer virus is nothing but a computer program which when, executed replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code(infecting other programs). When this replication succeeds, the affected areas are then said to be "infected" with a computer virus.

Experience with computer virus:

Computer virus most of the times are propagated through softwares or Gaming applications which are available for free from an unreliable source,when user installs that software/application he unintentionally installs malicious virus code also as soon as this code gets permission to execute itself,it starts replicating itself.

Five years back,I felt prey to same type of trap,when I installed a popular arcade game of that time,I was very happy that I got it for free on a website while searching for the same,as it's license copy was expensive.i downloaded the game and clicked on install,I got warning from operating system which stated "This type of file can harm the system,do you still want to install it?" , I was so excited about game I clicked install and ignored the warning. Game got installed in my system and I started playing it. Soon I realized my system was working slow,I thought it must be because of new game but day after day it started going slow and in a week time I realized that my system was not at all working ,it was showing continuously that the application is not responding/almost all application were crashing and when I searched on internet about the issue It was clear that my computer has got virus,names of files were changing ,data was entirely corrupted.

How I fixed the issue:

I searched about the virus,and how they work.i realized that they attack hard disk drive of computer and hence I formatted my hard disk drive and installed an antivirus software so as to prevent my system in future from being attacked by virus.I lost my data as it was corrupted.

Virus from macro:

Macro virus is a type of computer virus that has been written in the same macro language which is used for software programs, including Microsoft Excel or Microsoft Word. When a macro virus infects a software application, it causes a sequence of actions to begin automatically when the application is opened.

Since a macro virus centers on an application and not an operating system, it typically can infect any computer running any operating system, even those system which work with Symbian, MacOs and Linux.Microsoft Office documents containing built-in macros can be dangerous. Macros are essentially bits of computer code, and they’ve been known as vehicles for malware. Luckily, modern versions of Office comes up with the security features that will ensure your security from macros.

Macros are still potentially dangerous. But, like a tiger at the zoo, you would have to go out of your way to be hurt by them.

You can create your own macros using the built-in Macro Recorder. This allows you to automate repetitive tasks — in the future, you’ll be able to repeat the actions you recorded by running the macro. Just like a loop in a programming language,once task has been recorded in macro it could be performed again and again without needing to write it back again. Hence Macros are important and couldn't be discarded out. Macros we record ourselves are safer ,however malicious attackers could write VBA code to create macros that do harmful things. They could then embed these macros in Office documents and distribute them online,once you download them and run them they would possibly run the malicious code as well.

VBA macros were added to Office in the 90s, at a time when Microsoft wasn’t concerned about security as at that time macros were not used to propogate malware's and viruses.

But now as VBA script is being used to record macro and perform malicious actions,we need to be careful while using a macro,macro functionality can reduce our efforts to write same peice of code back again and again ,but also establishes risk of virus. hence they should be used carefully and shouldn't be downloaded or taken from external unreliable sources.

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