Which of the following is a well-known macro virus?

• A. ILOVEYOU virus
• B. Stuxnet
• C. Conficker
• D. The Melissa virus

Answer: (D)

Macro viruses embed malicious code inside document macros (often VBA in Word or Excel) and execute when the document is opened or macros run, enabling automatic propagation. A classic example of this kind is the Melissa virus. It infected Word documents and used a macro to spread by emailing itself to people in the user’s address book via an email client, often after briefly modifying a template to ensure persistence. This caused rapid, mass distribution and brought attention to the dangers of enabling macros in email attachments, as well as to the need for macro security settings.

Other well-known malware on the list are not macro viruses in the traditional sense. ILOVEYOU was a worm that spread through an email attachment with a script rather than a Word/Excel macro, while Stuxnet and Conficker are sophisticated worms targeting specific systems rather than macro-based document infections.