Microsoft recently announced that Office 365 applications support the Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI) feature, allowing antivirus engines to detect and block malicious macroscommands.
Infected macros have long been one of the biggest threats to Microsoft Office users. The company says this new feature will help protect users when working online with documents.
AMSI's biggest advantage is that it is an open interface that can work with almost any antivirus program, so by default it has support for Windows Defender and is also supported by third-party products.
AMSI is already integrated in Office 365, ie in applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Visio and Publisher. But note that it won't scan macros if your security settings are “Enable All Macros” and listed as trusted or from trusted sites.
Users with operating system Windows 10 and with Windows Defender benefit from additional protection, thanks to the mechanism that runs from the cloud and uses the built-in AMSI to determine whether a macro is dangerous or not.
"When devices encounter documents with suspicious macro code, Windows Defender sends metadata and other machine learning features to the cloud, along with signals from Office AMSI. The results from machine learning translate into real-time protection for other Windows Defender clients, even if they have cloud protection enabled. notes Microsoft.
AMSI is one technology που was integrated into Windows 10 in 2015 to provide developers with an advanced method for detecting viruses for any data.
