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Macro virus for Sun’s StarOffice found

Malware believed to be the first virus for Sun Microsystem's StarOffice has been discovered by Kaspersky Lab researchers.

The proof of concept Virus.StarOffice.Stardust.a, is the first virus that can theoretically infect StarOffice and OpenOffice, according to a researcher’s posting on Kaspersky’s Viruslist weblog.

The most striking feature of the newly discovered malware for StarOffice – Sun’s commercial office suite software package - is that it’s a macro virus.

"You might wonder what’s interesting about this – viruses have been around for a long time, and are starting to fade from the scene," the researcher, using the name "Kostya," said. "But if you look more closely at the name, you can see why I’m interested: Stardust is a macro virus written for StarOffice, the first one I’ve seen. Macro viruses usually infect MS Office applications."

To infect a targeted PC, the virus downloads an image file with adult content from the web and opens the file in a new document, according to Kaspersky.

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