When plug-in is disabled, how to anti-virus scan attachments

[stevemalee]

When the Office plug-in program in Norton AntiVirus program has been disabled....

how can you make sure that the attachments that you receive in Outlook are scanned for viruses ??

 

[darksasami]

Just run Auto-Protect at all times. The way attachments work, they can't execute until they're saved to the hard drive. This means that Auto-Protect will catch anything that comes in the mail before it executes.

The Outlook plug-in only works with an Exchange server. If you have one of those, you should be doing email filtering at the server. There are a number of antivirus products, including a Symantec one, available for that purpose.

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

 

[stevemalee]

I do not have exchange server and I am able to check the Office plug-in and when I have it checked it scans my word documents when I open any of them.

You said that "when running autoprotect" that the attachments -- even when un-opened - are scanned. Did I understand you correctly ?

Thanks

 

[darksasami]

Right. That's the Office plug-in, not the Outlook plug-in, that's doing that. Big difference.

When running auto-protect, attachments are typically scanned when opened--though they never do get a chance to open. What happens is that when you try to open the attachment, the email program has to extract the file and save it to a temp file first. That triggers the scan, and email viruses get caught at that point, BEFORE they get opened. However, they don't get scanned until you try to open them.

Some email programs save attachments as actual files instead of in a mail database. If you use one of those email programs, attachments will be scanned as soon as they're saved, before you ever try to open them.

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

 

[dpcjudy]

Just to be sure I understand correctly, even when I uncheck the Office plug-in ( sorry about the mistake re: calling it Outlook ) ....

..........when I un-check the Office plug-in, my email attachments sent to me using Outlook ..
... will be scanned by the Norton Anti-Virus program when I click on them to open... ??

Thanks so much for your help.

I don't mean to be-labor the point, but do want to be sure I understand

 

[darksasami]

That's correct.

Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

 

[stevemalee]

Thanks very much for your help...