Emails with attachments containing macros

Emails with attachments containing Microsoft Office documents with macros are posing increasing risks for computer security. For that reason the RRZK servers stopped accepting such email messages on December 18, 2019.

This policy applies to all Microsoft Office documents containing macros, both legacy documents with the types .doc, .ppt, and .xls and the new types .docm, .pptm, .xlsm. Documents using the types .docx, .pptx or .xlsx are not affected, because they cannot contain macros.

If the macro isn't actually necessary, please ask your correspondent to save the document without it, and have them send it to you again. If you have a legitimate use case for exchanging documents containing macros, you have several options, e.g.:

• Gigamove https://rrzk.uni-koeln.de/gigamove.html

• encrypted attachments. Please note that malware is sometimes sent using encrypted attachments. Therefore this should only be used as a last resort.