Email security

[Potatoman]

Does anyone know if having the preview pane open in outlook / ol express pose a security risk?

[Dave Ewart]

It can do. A number of viruses do not embed themselves into attachments but into the email message body itself.

If oyu use the preview pane, and a new email comes in, it will display that message in the preview pane, thus executing a potentially harmful virus.

If you turn the preview pane off, you can view the send and the subject of the message in your inbox without opening the message itself. If it looks dodgy then you can delete it safely.

Microsoft have released a security patch related to this problem, it's available on this page:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;261255

Hope this helps.