The Deceptive Safety of RTF Files
Denis Zenkin · Computer Fraud & Security · 2001
RTF (Rich Text Format), as presented to many users, is considered to be a so-called universal remedy against obtrusive macro-viruses and any other sort of malicious code. Numerous anti-virus companies categorically recommend not accepting any standard MS Word (DOC) files. It is true that RTF files cannot contain a macro-program (macros) in basic form — in the instance of conversion by standard means from other formats, the macros are automatically deleted — however, this same RTF feature has a flip side to it: users are lulled into a false sense of security, ignoring the basic principles of safety when working with RTF documents.