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#1
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Unsafe attachments in Outlook Express
I received an e-mail with an attachment I could not open
because Outlook Express denied access to it because it was "unsafe." I know that the sender would not have deliberately sent an infected file. Are there any possibilities that this is a problem with a security setting or some other setting, rather than with an actual infected file? Thanks, Bill O'Neal |
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#2
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Unsafe attachments in Outlook Express
Bill O'Neal wrote:
I received an e-mail with an attachment I could not open because Outlook Express denied access to it because it was "unsafe." I know that the sender would not have deliberately sent an infected file. Are there any possibilities that this is a problem with a security setting or some other setting, rather than with an actual infected file? Thanks, Bill O'Neal Tools-options-security 120,000 hits on google about this....... |
#3
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Unsafe attachments in Outlook Express
Greetings --
Outlook Express' default security settings are simply trying to protect you. OE has no way of telling whether an attachment actually contains a virus or not, so it temporarily blocks any of those file types that could potentially contain a virus. In Outlook Express, Tools Options Security, uncheck the "Do not allow attachments to be saved or opened that could potentially be a virus" option, assuming you trust the source, of course. The wiser course of action, however, would be to modify your list of unsafe files, as outlined in the KB articles below: Cannot Open E-Mail Attachments in OE After You Install SP1 http://support.microsoft.com/default...;en-us;Q329570 Information About the Unsafe File List in Internet Explorer 6 http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;291369 OLEXP Using Virus Protection Features in Outlook Express 6 http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;EN-US;291387 Bruce Chambers -- Help us help you: http://dts-l.org/goodpost.htm http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on having both at once. -- RAH "Bill O'Neal" wrote in message ... I received an e-mail with an attachment I could not open because Outlook Express denied access to it because it was "unsafe." I know that the sender would not have deliberately sent an infected file. Are there any possibilities that this is a problem with a security setting or some other setting, rather than with an actual infected file? Thanks, Bill O'Neal |
#4
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Unsafe attachments in Outlook Express
In ,
Bill O'Neal typed: I received an e-mail with an attachment I could not open because Outlook Express denied access to it because it was "unsafe." I know that the sender would not have deliberately sent an infected file. Are there any possibilities that this is a problem with a security setting or some other setting, rather than with an actual infected file? Even if he didn't deliberately send an infected file, it could still be infected. Starting with SP1, Outlook Express does this by default, for any file type which *can* contain a virus. It's not a virus checker, doesn't actually check the attachments, and this doesn't mean that there actually is a virus there. Such attachments *are* very risky. You often see advice not to open attachments from people you don't know. I think that that's one of the most dangerous pieces of advice you see around, because it implies that it's safe to do the opposite--open attachments from friends and relatives. But many viruses spread by sending themselves to everyone in the infected party's address book, so attachments received from friends are perhaps the *most* risky to open. Personally I never open executable attachments at all, except from a *very* few trusted sources, and then only when I'm expecting them. But if you want to remove this safeguard, it's easy to do so: go to Tools | Options, and on the security tab, uncheck "Do not allow attachments..." -- Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User Please reply to the newsgroup |
#5
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Unsafe attachments in Outlook Express
You need to understand that current viruses can send email to you using
any address found on the infected system as the From: address. This means that you can't trust that the email came from the indicated source. All you know is that someone who has your email address on their system (perhaps only in a newsgroup file) has been infected with a bug. You CANNOT TRUST that attachment, unless you specifically asked for it and there are indications in the message body that the attachment is coming in response to your request. Don't disable the OE protection unless you have an anti-virus scanner running in the background to protect you when you open files and attachments. I keep a copy of the eicar test virus on my system and occasionally test my av scanner by attempting to open this file. http://www.eicar.org/anti_virus_test_file.htm -- Kent W. England, Microsoft MVP for Windows "Bill O'Neal" wrote in message ... I received an e-mail with an attachment I could not open because Outlook Express denied access to it because it was "unsafe." I know that the sender would not have deliberately sent an infected file. Are there any possibilities that this is a problem with a security setting or some other setting, rather than with an actual infected file? Thanks, Bill O'Neal |
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