Outlook question (Outlook 2003)

[gillly]

Hi, I was wondering if anyone could assist. Does having the Reading Pane turned on in Outlook (03) help to reduce the likelihood of virus attack from incoming emails. My understanding was that if your are not actually "opening" a message, but viewing it in the Pane and then deleting anything that looked "sus", this would help, but would appreciate any advice or suggestions.

Cheers

[Rebel]

Hi and Welcome to the Lounge.

According to this MS article you should be safe. I'm assuming you have installed a good anti virus package with up-to-date definitions.

[gillly]

Thank you Rebel (or should I use John?)

The MS Article does serve to reinforce my understanding, so I will have another look tonight to see if anyone comes up with any contradictory advice, then go back to my client.

Cheers

[jscher2000]

As you may know, there are three different possible vectors for attack. By far the most common is the attachments, so how you read the message has no effect on that. You simply have to never open any attachments and you're safe! The second is script embedded in or linked into the message body, and the third is an applet or ActiveX object embedded in or linked into the message body. You control these by using Tools>Options..., Security tab, Zone = Restricted and then setting security to High for the restricted zone. Also, make sure you keep Internet Explorer patched when new updates are available, since Outlook uses IE to process HTML messages.

[gillly]

Thanks, jscherr2000. This is also of assistance, and will keep it in mind.