Work with BSI compliant clients

Office: Macro in file does not work

A common attack path for malware uses macros in Office files (such as Word documents, Excel spreadsheets or PowerPoint presentations). Because malware spread via macros can potentially damage our entire IT infrastructure, macros can only be executed on computers with BSI basic protection if they have been provided with a digital signature.

If you would like to use an Office file that uses macros and the macro functionality is essential, please contact the SCC hotline.

E-mail: nutzerservice[at]uni-weimar.de


Outlook: Read and write formatted e-mails

Notice

Displaying and composing e-mails in plain text mode can help minimize known security risks, e.g. can

  • malware may be contained in the message body of HTML e-mails
  • clickable links in HTML e-mails point to potentially dangerous pages without this being recognizable in the HTML view

Please use the text-only format as much as possible for reading and writing e-mails!

E-mail is incomprehensible in plain text view: Switch to HTML mode while reading

In exceptional cases it may happen that

  • E-mails are difficult to grasp in the plain text view
  • Embedded graphics are not displayed, not even as an attachment

To read the message content in full, you can switch to HTML view if you press

  • Know the sender and trust him
  • Have checked links in the message

Please click on the images to enlarge.

Above the message text you will see a notice that the message has been converted to plain text format. Click on it.

Above the message text you will see a notice that the message has been converted to plain text format. Click on it.

A small context menu will open - click on »Show as HTML«.

A small context menu will open - click on »Show as HTML«.

The message is now displayed with full formatting.

The message is now displayed with full formatting.

(The e-mail shown here serves only as an example. The plain text view would be easy to understand and also shows a link that is not immediately visible in the HTML view).

Email needs formatting: switch to HTML mode when writing

If you start writing a new e-mail, the plain text format will be preset at first.
If you need - please only then - advanced formatting like tables or figures with description, you can switch to HTML mode.


Please click on the images to enlarge.

Switch to the »Format Text« tab. Here you click on the »HTML« button.

Switch to the »Format Text« tab.
Here you click on the »HTML« button.

After the changeover, the font of the plain text format will continue to be used. To change this, click the »Default« button.

After the changeover, the font of the plain text format will continue to be used.
To change this, click the »Default« button.