Suspicious file?

[nikzingg]

Hi all,

Today the following happened to me:

I am offering a gig on translations from English to German and vice versa. Someone then contacted me regarding this gig. He sent me a .odt file called “Untitled 1” via Fiverr chat. Naive as I am, I downloaded and opened it with MS Word. The only content of the file was a small string of numbers. I then closed the file and deleted it. When confronting the “buyer” about it he wouldn’t respond.

• I did not leave the protected view inside Word
• I have macros disabled in MS Office
• I’m using Windows Defender and Malwarebytes as malware protection: both scans did not detect anything suspicious

Anyone with experience in malware: is this a risk? Might my PC now be compromised? What should I do? Can I rely on those malware scans?

Thanks for the help!

[looseink]

First Mistake: Accepting a file via Fiverr chat.

Don’t offer anything to anyone until AFTER an Order has been placed.

I hope this helps.

[nikzingg]

First Mistake: Accepting a file via Fiverr chat.

Don’t offer anything to anyone until AFTER an Order has been placed.

I hope this helps.

Not really. Sometimes I need to check beforehand, if I am able to do the order or not. In that case it is necessary to check the requirements (which include text files in that particular case) before the buyer places an order for nothing.

[mattboa]

Hi all,

Today the following happened to me:

I am offering a gig on translations from English to German and vice versa. Someone then contacted me regarding this gig. He sent me a .odt file called “Untitled 1” via Fiverr chat. Naive as I am, I downloaded and opened it with MS Word. The only content of the file was a small string of numbers. I then closed the file and deleted it. When confronting the “buyer” about it he wouldn’t respond.

• I did not leave the protected view inside Word
• I have macros disabled in MS Office
• I’m using Windows Defender and Malwarebytes as malware protection: both scans did not detect anything suspicious

Anyone with experience in malware: is this a risk? Might my PC now be compromised? What should I do? Can I rely on those malware scans?

Thanks for the help!

small string of numbers

…I don’t think that was a hacking attempt. That was a phone number.

[maitasun]

Hi @nikzingg,

Try this page to scan your file(s): VirusTotal

[nikzingg]

Hi @nikzingg,

Try this page to scan your file(s): VirusTotal

Thanks. Done it. Nothing suspicious.

[nikzingg]

small string of numbers

…I don’t think that was a hacking attempt. That was a phone number.

That is actually a pretty good call. (no pun intended) I just checked the country prefix. Based on the country the “buyer” stated in his profile, this might actually be it. Nevertheless it’s cryptic why someone would send me a phone number, packed into a whole Word file, related on a translation gig…