Ithaca College

Information Technology Services (ITS) has recently seen several examples of suspicious email messages that have a Microsoft Word document attached. The attachment may contain a "macro" that can cause harm to your computer.

The most recent examples ITS has seen involve some sort of financial transaction - either an invoice or payment due to you from an organization you may or may not have heard of. If you receive such an email with a Word attachment, particularly from an unfamiliar company, or a familiar company (IRS, UPS, Amazon, etc.) that you are not expecting communication from, be highly wary.

Malicious macros are not new; they were very popular several years ago, but seem to be making a comeback. A macro is a set of commands and instructions that may be used for a legitimate purpose within a document, but are often used for malicious purposes. Macros are disabled by default within Microsoft Office, so if you attempt to open a malicious attachment you may see a message suggesting that you enable macros to see the full content. Don't do it!

If you have any questions, please contact the Helpdesk.

ITS Helpdesk
helpdesk@ithaca.edu
104 Job Hall
4-1000