There are many ways that hackers infect our devices. Many strategies they can use to sneak malware and thus compromise our privacy. However, one of the most common methods is through malicious files that are sent by email or that users download while surfing the net. Within these files, Word files are widely used for this purpose. We will explain in this article how to know if a Word file is safe or may pose a security threat.
Word files, widely used to attack
As we say, Word files are widely used by hackers to carry out their attacks. They can use them to infect devices, compromise systems, steal passwords, and ultimately put users’ security and privacy at risk.
Luckily we can take into account certain tips, make use of tools to protect ourselves, as well as always have the latest patches and updates available. This is essential to avoid problems of this type that could compromise us. Any mistake we make can expose our personal information and our devices at risk.
However, sometimes doubts can arise as to whether a Word file is safe or can be dangerous. For this reason we are going to show some options to try to solve doubts and thus avoid major problems.
How to know if a Word is safe
Let’s take as an example that we receive an email with a supposed file containing important information that we must know. We do not really know if it is something legitimate or it may be a scam to infect our computers. Luckily we can make use of different tools and take into account some aspects to see if it is really safe or not to open it.
Know where it comes from
Although it is not something that alone is going to ensure that this file is safe, without a doubt knowing the origin of the e-mail will help us. We can see the shipping address, the body of the message, the text that includes …
All this will allow us to have a better knowledge about that e-mail received. Some data that will tell us if it can really be safe to open it or not. In case we see something strange we can anticipate and not open that file.
See if it is attached or you have to download it from a link
This is very important. Malicious attachments are usually detected by our email provider. Therefore, that can also give us a small clue if we see that they invite us to download it from a link.
This means that this Word file is hosted on a third-party site, where it may well contain malware.
Observe the weight
Is it overweight for a simple text file? It may contain malicious code attached, such as embedded images. This is undoubtedly a sign that helps us understand more if a file is malicious or not.
OfficeMalScanner
A very interesting tool to analyze Word files and find out if they are dangerous or not is OfficeMalScanner . It is very simple to use, free, and it will quickly tell us if that file we have doubts about may or may not be a danger and therefore we should take action.
It allows you to analyze all types of Office documents, not just Word. We can download it and learn more about this application.
Use online analysis programs
Of course we can also use online analysis programs . Basically they are antivirus where we will not need to install any type of software on our system. We will only have to upload the file, give it to analyze and check that everything is correct.
In this sense we have a wide range of possibilities. A very popular option is VirusTotal . It allows us to upload any file or URL and analyze the content.
In short, these are some options that we have at our disposal to know if a Word file is safe and not put our devices at risk.
