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The Office demon: Minos
Dechaux J. Journal of Computer Virology and Hacking Techniques9 (3):125-135,2013.Type:Article
Date Reviewed: Jul 14 2014

An instruction manual on the use of a program for injecting malicious payloads into Office documents, this paper is interesting but not useful to defenders of computer installations.

The paper is not new; it was first published in 2012. Its English is not perfect. The author obviously knows how to infect documents authored using Microsoft Office and LibreOffice or OpenOffice. He did not choose to provide countermeasures against the use of Office documents as attack vectors. That information has to be inferred from the descriptions of how to infect documents.

The program provides a graphical user interface rather than a method for automated background execution. That would probably reduce its usefulness to evildoers.

In summary, the paper is not recommended reading. Its target audience is not clear. Defenders will not find recommendations for preventing macro-based attacks, and attackers will not find a program that can be invoked in secret.

Reviewer:  Neil D. Burgess Review #: CR142501 (1504-0324)
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