Macro viruses are having a bit of a comeback lately. There is a version of the Cridex banking Trojan (newly named Cridex) that is hitting Australia, UK, and USA especially. The initial infection is via an invoice/financial file received in email, so watch out for that, and make sure you have disabled macros in your Microsoft Office software. This strain executes automatically when the file is opened if macros are enabled.

Regards,

Another reason why I prefer open office over Microsoft office. Still, I don't use either or because I have no need for them.

I've never bothered to check Open Office, but perhaps its macros are similar to those of MS Office. The user base is much smaller, of course, so it's not a very profitable target for the malware crowd. It's been predicted that in 2015 we'll see advanced persistent threat techniques used to infect average user machines. They often start with an email attachment, however, so that's not too "advanced." What scares me is the possibility of slipping small packets through the firewall and then assembling them into malware later.

Regards,

I believe they are from what I've read and seen . They're just written using the "OpenOffice.Org Basic" programming language instead of VBA in M$ Office.

I also agree that the smaller user base makes it less profitable target.

It seems that profitability--initial profitability, as least, is not as important to some malware authors as the ability to get into a system (preferably an important system or one that is used by an important person) with the ultimate objective to gain access to proprietary information from organizations, companies, and nations. If they fail to do that, of course, they will try to get the usual password/financial stuff. They are adopting techniques ( including patience/persistence) borrowed from the espionage crowd. I think we will eventually see more of these types of infections among average users.

Regards,