Security advocates took a big hit in February when Microsoft announced Office applications would finally block VBA macros by default. But Microsoft is rowing back. The VBA macro block originally scheduled for June 2022 no longer has a release date.
You can use macros to automate tasks in Office applications. For example, you can use it to automatically fill in Excel spreadsheets with data sets. But VBA macros are also a major vehicle for malware and phishing – they’re just a bunch of code and are often shared by strangers on the internet.
Microsoft started testing a VBA block on its Currents Channel last April. This block prevents macros from running until they are saved to a “trusted location” and manually signed by a user. But Microsoft suddenly reversed that block, citing user feedback.
Comments on Microsoft’s Tech Community forum indicate that the VBA macros block was not effective. Some macros could work directly from email and web attachments, which defeats the whole purpose of this block. (Unfortunately we can’t verify if this is true or not.)
According to Wenjun Gong, program manager at Microsoft, the company will “provide another update when we’re ready to release it again.” There’s a good chance the VBA macro block will return to Office’s “Currents Channel” and eventually be rolled out to average users.
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