Stardust: Proof-of-concept virus found targeting StarOffice

Proof-of-concept virus found targeting StarOffice

Microsoft Office has been one of the major applications to have been targeted by virus writers. The comprehensive macro support in this office productivity suite makes it easier for them to write document files, which can infect the application resulting in catastrophic results.

The latest news in is that security application companies have confirmed that they have discovered the first proof-of-concept virus targeting the StarOffice office suite.

Fortunately, this virus is not spreading and is not much damaging for the users of this application suite. Sun Microsystems is the developer of this suite and it is basically a corporate version of the open source office suite OpenOffice.

Antivirus firm Kaspersky is calling the virus “Stardust”. This virus is basically contained in a StarOffice document that uses macros and then infects a global template, which is used by the application to generate new documents.

If a victim opens the file carrying this virus, Stardust copies it into the global template and all contained in a StarOffice document that uses macros and then infects a global template gets infected by it used by that copy of the software.