Open E-mail Preview Pane Being Vulnerable to Viruses

[Terry]

I am having a debate with one of my IT techs where I work.

The company uses Outlook 2002.

When I open up Outlook, I have my Inbox set up so that I
have the Recipient pane (the From, Subject, Received &
Size pane)on top and the Preview Pane (NOT...the Auto
Preview pane)on the bottom.

Our IT tech is very nervous about this configuration and
believes that it makes our computers vulnerable to viruses
when Outlook is opened to that type of configuration.

Is that correct?

Thank you for any instruction on how to avoid acquiring
viruses when using Outlook 2002.

Terry

 

[Diane Poremsky [MVP]]

http://www.slipstick.com/emo/2004/up040430.htm#myths
http://www.slipstick.com/emo/2004/up040204.htm#preview
http://www.slipstick.com/outlook/antivirus.htm
http://ntbugtraq.ntadvice.com/default.asp?sid=1&pid=47&aid=56

You may want to use Chilton Preview (linked on the antivirus.htm page) to
appease the tech and prevent webbugs from being sent back - it can't render
HTML and if you need to see any messages in HTML, you can always open the
message or switch to the Outlook preview for that message.

FWIW, the place to stop viruses is at the mail server, not in Outlook. If
users aren't tempted by attachments, they won't open them. Also, don't
reduce Outlook's attachment security (again, the place to block attachments
is at server so you aren't tempted to reduce attachment security in
Outlook.) If the computers are kept updated, even Outlook 98's preview (the
least safe version) is safe.