Microsoft Outlook Reading Pane

[latitude800]

I was told if I am using Reading Pane to view my email I am activating any email viruses that may recived. I like to confirm that the information is correct. Unless I open the attachement and activate the .exe I will get a virus, but not by using Reading Pane. I am trying to find information my I cannot find it on microsoft.com. Can someone please provide me with more information, appreciate your opinion.

Regards,

Jimmy

 

[smah]

It depends.....

Over the years there have been some vulnerabilites discovered. Of course, once discovered someone will try to take advantage of them. And if you keep your system updated, you should be getting the appropriate pathes. Here's an older example from some time ago. If you're running a recent version of OE, this patch is included. While it's actually operating system issue, not a problem with OE, it's my understanding that in theory, the recent WMF vulnerability could execute from the preview pane. Also, recent versions of OE have a setting to allow you to still use the preview pane, but only show only text - no HTML. If enabled, this will greatly reduce the chances of an exploit being activated.

So, if you stay fully patched, you should be reasonably safe. You could increase the safety factor by disabling HTML. But that does not guarantee that some new vulnerability won't be discovered sometime in the future.

Steve

 

[smah]

I wrote OE, but the same generalities apply to Outlook as well.

Steve