Opening a .doc attachment from ambiguous source

[henryn]

Folks:

"Don't open any email attachments from someone you don't know!"

I just got a 414Kb .doc file as an attachment to an incoming email,
apparently from an absolutely reputable research institution in a
non-English speaking country.

The message body is short and inconclusive. It _may_ refer to a comment
about their website/database I submitted some months ago.

OK, I saved the .doc file attachment to the desktop and I ran an ASCII dump
on it. The file appears to contain a short form letter, "Thank you for your
comments..." But it is difficult to see if there's anything else --maybe an
embedded picture-- that would account for that big a file.

What are the dangers of opening this document with Word? Is there a
reasonably safe way to read the contents?

Thanks,

Henry

(e-mail address removed) remove 'zzz'



Word 2004 (11.1)
MacOS 10.3.9

 

[Paul Berkowitz]

"Don't open any email attachments from someone you don't know!"

I just got a 414Kb .doc file as an attachment to an incoming email,
apparently from an absolutely reputable research institution in a
non-English speaking country.

The message body is short and inconclusive. It _may_ refer to a comment
about their website/database I submitted some months ago.

OK, I saved the .doc file attachment to the desktop and I ran an ASCII dump
on it. The file appears to contain a short form letter, "Thank you for your
comments..." But it is difficult to see if there's anything else --maybe an
embedded picture-- that would account for that big a file.

What are the dangers of opening this document with Word? Is there a
reasonably safe way to read the contents?

First go into Word preferences/Security and check that you have "Macro
security/warning" checked, which it is by default. Then double-click the
Word file - if there's a macro there, you'll get a warning - choose not to
open it. Chances are there's no macro, nothing but some graphics, which can
easily take up 414 KB, which is not actually so large as all that. If
there's no macro, the .doc will open and you'll be fine.

--
Paul Berkowitz
MVP MacOffice
Entourage FAQ Page: <http://www.entourage.mvps.org/faq/index.html>
AppleScripts for Entourage: <http://macscripter.net/scriptbuilders/>

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PLEASE always state which version of Microsoft Office you are using -
**2004**, X or 2001. It's often impossible to answer your questions
otherwise.

 

[henryn]

Paul Berkowitz:

Thanks for your email:

First go into Word preferences/Security and check that you have "Macro
security/warning" checked, which it is by default. Then double-click the
Word file - if there's a macro there, you'll get a warning - choose not to
open it. Chances are there's no macro, nothing but some graphics, which can
easily take up 414 KB, which is not actually so large as all that. If
there's no macro, the .doc will open and you'll be fine.

OK, I followed those instructions and opened the file. It _did_ contain
some macros. It amounted to a straight letterhead containing a short
standard message, as I thought "Thanks for your comments". Strange way to
respond... By the way, the file contained one tiny graphic and 956
characters, including spaces. To contain that, 414 KB seems a bit
excessive, but never mind.

Thanks!

Henry

 

[matt neuburg]

berkowit@spoof_silcom.com wrote on 5/22/05 8:51 AM:


OK, I followed those instructions and opened the file. It _did_ contain
some macros.

Then why did you open it? Paul specifically advised that if the Word
file contains macros you should NOT open it. m.

 

[Tim Murray]

Then why did you open it? Paul specifically advised that if the Word
file contains macros you should NOT open it. m.

But hopefully he took the option to disable macros.

 

[Beth Rosengard]

But hopefully he took the option to disable macros.

Knowing Henry (and I do), he most certainly did!

Beth

 

[Daiya Mitchell]

It would be interesting to know what was in those macros - can one

disable macros and still read them? m.

I don't think so. I think I tried once, and it came up as Locked in the
VBE, or somesuch.

Daiya