1. Microsoft ® Office Training How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Jim Taliaferro Community Mental Health Center

3. Overview: Gain security awareness How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Worried about computer security? Does the mere mention of viruses or spyware scare you? Here you’ll learn how new 2007 Office system file formats can help keep your files safer. You’ll also find out about default program settings that can make it easier for you to deal with security. Taking some simple, basic steps in Office can go a long way toward helping you protect your computer.

5. Lesson 1 First things first: Take care of your computer

6. First things first: Take care of your computer How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer You may not know it, but your computer is being targeted. It’s nothing personal—all computers are targets. There are people out there trying to bring down your computer or gain access to data on it. It’s up to you to learn about the dangers and find out how you can help protect your computer and be more secure. This lesson helps you know your enemy by introducing the ways your computer could be at risk and providing advice about how to help avoid those risks.

7. Security threats How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer You’re probably familiar with some of these terms from the news media: viruses , worms , Trojan horses , phishing , and spyware . To take steps that make your computer more secure, you need some basic information about what the dangers are.

8. Security threats How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Most of the security threats mentioned involve a piece of malicious software (or code) that is intended to run on your computer without you knowing about it. Malicious software may be hidden inside another file or program, or run silently in the background. Most malicious software is designed to replicate itself and infect other files or computers. But what exactly the malicious code does to your computer depends on what it is and how destructive it is.

11. Sources of infection How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Whether virus, worm, Trojan horse, or spyware, most malicious code is trying to get onto your computer by hiding itself somewhere that looks innocent. For example, it could be in an e-mail attachment you receive, software you download from the Internet, a Web site you visit, a shared file or network, a floppy disk you share, or even a Microsoft Office document. Basically, any information that comes from another computer could pose a risk.

12. Sources of infection How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer If you kept your computer in a sealed room, never linked it to a network or the Internet, and never inserted a CD or floppy disk, you would remain safe. But that would make your computer practically useless. So practice safeguards instead. As well as being wary of information coming into your computer, be careful when visiting Web sites that request information from you. Also ensure that you’re on a genuine site before entering any personal data.

13. Microsoft Update: an essential security precaution How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer The most basic security step is to make sure your computer software is up to date. Microsoft releases regular updates—you may hear them called “patches” in the news media—to combat new threats as they appear. It’s wise to check for and install updates regularly. Updates for the Microsoft Windows ® operating system and for Office are found on the Microsoft Update site.

14. Antivirus software How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Your most important and essential defense against viruses is antivirus software . Install it, use it, and keep it up to date. Antivirus software is designed to detect known viruses. Because new viruses are always being written, it’s essential to keep your antivirus software up to date. When a new virus hits the world, the antivirus software manufacturers typically have an update available for download on their Web sites within hours.

16. E-mail security How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer One of the more hazardous areas for picking up viruses and other nasties is e-mail. Sometimes just opening the message can trigger a virus. Even when you have antivirus software, a new virus could have been released since the software was last updated. So always be very wary of attachments. Be especially suspicious if the message is from someone you don’t know (or aren’t expecting to hear from) or if the subject line or attachment name is strange.

17. E-mail security How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer After you’ve decided you want to open or save an attached file, you can do so by right-clicking its icon in the Outlook Reading Pane. If you’re still concerned that the message is infected with a virus or contains other malicious code, and if the sender is a friend or colleague, you can always ask for confirmation before opening it. If the message does turn out to be viral, delete it without opening it. And then delete it from your Deleted Items folder.

24. Lesson 2 Security in Office

25. Security in Office How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer You've learned that some malicious software can hide in Office documents. Fortunately, the 2007 Office system has new features to help keep documents safer. This lesson will tell you more about the potential risks, especially macros, and what Microsoft Office does to protect you. In a nutshell, the 2007 Office system helps to protect your computer from anything malicious by automatically disabling any potential security risks.

26. The Message Bar How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Imagine that you’ve opened a document sent to you by a colleague. She’s told you that it’s got information in it that you need to review, and that it performs a set of actions that may help you with your work. But right now you can’t get the document to work as described by your colleague. What’s going on? Is it broken?

27. The Message Bar How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Imagine that you’ve opened a document sent to you by a colleague. No, it’s not broken. Although macros can be very useful, they can sometimes contain malicious code. Any potential security risks that can be identified are automatically disabled in most Office files.

28. The Message Bar How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer As shown in the picture, you’ll know when something has been disabled because a helpful message appears in the Message Bar to tell you. You’ll know it’s related to a security issue by the shield icon that appears on the left, and you can read the text in the bar to find out more. The best way to stay safer is to do nothing. Yes, as with suspicious e-mail attachments, the best thing to do is not to touch macros.

29. The Message Bar How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Warning But as long as you don’t change the behind-the-scenes security settings, the Message Bar will always appear when Office has disabled something in a file that is potentially destructive. If you change any of the default security settings, potential security risks might not be automatically disabled.

30. Macros and other good things How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer So what are macros, and how do they affect you? A macro is small program written to automate and carry out a sequence of steps. Instead of going through a series of commands manually, you can automate them by running a macro. Macros are fantastic time-savers, and very useful things.

31. Macros and other good things How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Why does all this matter? Of all the security risks you may encounter in Microsoft Office documents, macros are by far the most likely. Therefore, it’s great news that the 2007 Office release detects macros and disables them. Because macros are little pieces of code , and therefore they could potentially contain a virus.

32. Macros and other good things How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer ActiveX controls and add-in programs Like macros, these are usually useful but can be used for malicious purposes. As potential security risks, ActiveX controls and add-in programs will trigger the security warning in the Message Bar and will be disabled, and you’ll have the chance to enable them if you want to. Another way that viruses can get into your Office documents is through Microsoft ActiveX ® controls and add-in programs.

33. No more choosing security levels How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer In previous versions of Microsoft Office, you had to choose a security level, for example, Medium, which would then apply for the whole program. In addition, security decisions about documents had to be made before you could see their contents. So many people just clicked straight through the security warnings, accepting any risks without thinking about it, in their eagerness to get into their documents.

34. No more choosing security levels How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer In the 2007 Office system, documents automatically open with potential security risks disabled. This means you can see what the document is about and then decide if you want to enable any macros or other features in it.

35. No more choosing security levels How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer In the 2007 Office system, documents automatically open with potential security risks disabled. A great thing about the file opening with everything disabled is that you can read through the contents of the file first. In addition, by using the Message Bar , you can choose what to do in any given file every time you open it.

36. More about the Message Bar How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer As mentioned earlier, the Message Bar will appear every time a file containing a potential security risk is opened, and the potential security risk will be disabled. The message in the bar will have the security shield icon and explain what has taken place. Sometimes you’ll also see the bar appear for non-security messages, such as those regarding workflow process. But in those cases the shield icon will not appear.

37. More about the Message Bar How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer The message in the Message Bar will change depending on what has been detected in the file. The most common message you’re likely to see is about macros having been disabled, but you might also see one about active content. You can get further information about the potential security risk by clicking the Options button on the Message Bar . More on that coming up.

38. Before you make a decision How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer Your file is open, but what information is available to help decide whether to run the macro? You’re going to need some background information. People who write macros can get their macros signed to prove they are trustworthy. This is called a digital signature . The signature is created by using a digital certificate .

39. Before you make a decision How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer If you use macros a lot, you can create your own list of trusted publishers . If you add a publisher to your list of trusted publishers, you won’t have to continue making security decisions about files signed by them, and you won’t see the Message Bar for files signed by one of your trusted publishers. It’s up to you whether to trust anyone at all.

40. Make a choice about a file How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer So you’ve read through the text contents of the file, and you think you might need to enable those macros. Click the Options button on the Message Bar . The Microsoft Office Security Options dialog box opens, where you can choose to enable them. The exact choices available in this dialog box depend on the type of potential security risk identified.

41. Make a choice about a file How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer So you’ve read through the text contents of the file, and you think you might need to enable those macros. You can to leave the potential security risk disabled, enable the macro (or other code) for this one occasion, or, if it’s signed, trust all code from that publisher. If you trust all code from that publisher, the publisher is added to your trusted publishers list.

42. Make a choice about a file How the 2007 Office system helps you to stay safer If one file contains multiple macros, your choice will apply to all of the macros—you can’t choose to enable one but not the others. However, if a file contains macros and some other type of potential security risks, such as links to external data, you will be presented with a choice for each type of potential security risk and be able to, for example, enable one security risk type but not the others.