The Macro Virus

The Macro Virus

The Macro Virus  makes use of   the built-in ability of  a number  of  programs   to execute
code. Programs such as Word and Excel have limited, but very powerful, versions of the
Visual Basic programming language.

 This allows for the automation of repetitive tasks, and the automatic configuration of specific settings. These macro languages are misused to attach   viral   code   to   documents   which   will   automatically   copy   itself   on   to   other documents, and propagate.

 Although Microsoft has turned off the feature by default now on new installations, it used to be that Outlook would automatically execute certain code attached to e-mails as soon as they were read. This meant that viruses were propagating very quickly by sending themselves to all of the e-mail addresses that were stored on the
infected machine.