Microsoft Word Is Under A Hack Attack: Do Not Open Documents Named ‘.RTF’

April 8, 2014 Leave a comment

Microsoft Word Is Under A Hack Attack: Do Not Open Documents Named ‘.RTF’

JULIE BORT ENTERPRISE  MAR. 26, 2014, 2:41 AM

Microsoft on Monday issued an emergency security warning saying that hackers have found a way to booby-trap certain common Word file with the extension”.rtf”.

Microsoft says it’s aware of attacks going on now, but there’s no fix yet to stop the hackers. It’s working on a way to stop the bug.

The only way to be sure your computer won’t get infected is to not open a document with the “.rtf” extension until Microsoft says it’s fine to do so.

This is the very worst kind of attack. A hacker that manages to get people to open the booby-trapped file can gain control of your computer. From there, the hacker can do all kinds of things. For instance, the hacker can turn your computer into a so-called “zombie” by putting it on an illegal “botnet.” That means hackers can use your computer as part of a bigger network of computers to do all kinds of illegal things, like sending spam, spreading viruses, or committing fraud.

Even more scary is that the hack could work even in “preview” mode. That’s where you don’t actually open the file, but view it in an email instead. Outlook, for instance, lets you preview attachments.

Microsoft is currently recommending that you block all “.rtf” documents from your computer. It released a free tool which will set that up for you.

While “.rtf” files are not the default for Microsoft Word, (the default is “.docx” or “.doc”), this is not a strange or unusual type of document. RTF stands for “rich text format.” For instance, it’s the default file format used by TextEdit, the free word processing app that comes with a Mac.

If people tend to email you a lot of Word documents, and you don’t want to block all .rtf documents, another good choice is to set up your email to be in text mode, recommends security blogger Paul Ducklin via the Sophos security blog. The downside: this can make formatted emails, like newsletters, more difficult to read.

 

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Kee Koon Boon (“KB”) is the co-founder and director of HERO Investment Management which provides specialized fund management and investment advisory services to the ARCHEA Asia HERO Innovators Fund (www.heroinnovator.com), the only Asian SMID-cap tech-focused fund in the industry. KB is an internationally featured investor rooted in the principles of value investing for over a decade as a fund manager and analyst in the Asian capital markets who started his career at a boutique hedge fund in Singapore where he was with the firm since 2002 and was also part of the core investment committee in significantly outperforming the index in the 10-year-plus-old flagship Asian fund. He was also the portfolio manager for Asia-Pacific equities at Korea’s largest mutual fund company. Prior to setting up the H.E.R.O. Innovators Fund, KB was the Chief Investment Officer & CEO of a Singapore Registered Fund Management Company (RFMC) where he is responsible for listed Asian equity investments. KB had taught accounting at the Singapore Management University (SMU) as a faculty member and also pioneered the 15-week course on Accounting Fraud in Asia as an official module at SMU. KB remains grateful and honored to be invited by Singapore’s financial regulator Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) to present to their top management team about implementing a world’s first fact-based forward-looking fraud detection framework to bring about benefits for the capital markets in Singapore and for the public and investment community. KB also served the community in sharing his insights in writing articles about value investing and corporate governance in the media that include Business Times, Straits Times, Jakarta Post, Manual of Ideas, Investopedia, TedXWallStreet. He had also presented in top investment, banking and finance conferences in America, Italy, Sydney, Cape Town, HK, China. He has trained CEOs, entrepreneurs, CFOs, management executives in business strategy & business model innovation in Singapore, HK and China.

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