On Thursday 08 February 2007 13:53, Mark Evans wrote:
> On page 17 in a section relating to how you can protect yourself from
> harmful emails there is a reference to NOT using the email preview as a
> default setting for the inbox. 
> Why would they say that?
> Does anybody have any comment on the risks involved in using the preview
> pane? 

Emails can come as plain text, as html, both with or without attachments
html can contain code (eg javascript), attachments can contain executable code 
(eg flash) which the less ecurity conscious email clients (eg Outlook as the 
worst offender) will simply execute without asking

Outlook is particularly bad since it can open gaping security holes by 
automatically openon attached MS Office documents which can contain scripted 
code

Other than that, even with more security conscious email clients, it pays off 
to NOT automatically preview html emails: scam mails can hide URLs and email 
addresses behind fake ones (eg paypal.com appears on the displayed "preview" 
email, but  the link is not to paypal, but to eg scammers.org

Horst
_______________________________________________
Gpcg_talk mailing list
[email protected]
http://ozdocit.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/gpcg_talk

Reply via email to