Adversaries may abuse Microsoft Office add-ins to obtain persistence on a compromised system. Office add-ins can be used to add functionality to Office programs.^[1] There are different types of add-ins that can be used by the various Office products; including Word/Excel add-in Libraries (WLL/XLL), VBA add-ins, Office Component Object Model (COM) add-ins, automation add-ins, VBA Editor (VBE), Visual Studio Tools for Office (VSTO) add-ins, and Outlook add-ins.^[2],[3]

Add-ins can be used to obtain persistence because they can be set to execute code when an Office application starts.

References

1. Microsoft. (n.d.). Add or remove add-ins. Retrieved July 3, 2017.
2. Knowles, W. (2017, April 21). Add-In Opportunities for Office Persistence. Retrieved November 17, 2024.
3. Caban, D. and Hirani, M. (2018, October 3). You’ve Got Mail! Enterprise Email Compromise. Retrieved November 17, 2024.

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