What does a macro virus do?
A. A macro virus hides in an application’s document template or special macro file. The WordBasic language built into Microsoft Word allows sophisticated formatting instructions to be executed automatically within any Word document. WordBasic also permits direct access to operating system controls, making it possible to create macros that can delete files, reboot the system or even reformat an entire disk. Since only Word template documents (usually files with a DOT extension) can contain macros, virus programmers put their destructive code in a document template and rename it with a DOC extension. When you open the infected file, it loads into Word as its own style template. If the file contains an AutoOpen macro, all of the macro instructions execute immediately. Destructive instructions can then be copied to the global macro pool, stored in a template called NORMAL.DOT. From there, the code can spread to other document templates and ruin the format of other documents as you open the
