Q.
Is there any measures I can take to protect myself from viruses using
Outlook Express?
A.
Update Outlook Express(OE) to the latest version from
Windowsupdate.com. Use anti-virus software such as Norton Anti-virus to
scan email. Disable the Preview Pane when downloading messages from your ISP.
1. A quick way to
do this is to add a button to the toolbar. Right-Click on the toolbar (where
the buttons Reply, "Create Mail" and other buttons are) and click "Customize".
2. On the left,
find and click "Preview", click "Add ->" and click Close.
3. You will have
a button now that toggles the preview pane.
Setup a new
message rule that redirects all mails with attachments to a special folder.
Infected messages usually come with attachments
1. Right-click
"Inbox", click "New Folder" and specify a name, we'll use "WARNING" here.
2. Next we have
to tell OE to redirect the messages. Click "Tools" in the menu bar, "Message
Rules" and "Mail".
3. Click
"New...", specify the condition as "Where the message has an attachment" and
the action to "Move it to the specified folder".
4. Specify the
folder as "WARNING" and click "OK" all the way out.
Making sure a
message is not infected.
1. Before you
click on the "WARNING" folder, make sure the Preview Pane is disabled.
2. View the
message subject, do not OPEN (double-click ) the message.
3. View the
message source, by RIGHT-clicking the message, clicking "Properties", "Details
Tab" and "Message Source". Here you can read the message in the original form.
4. Attachments
will have a special heading, here is an example:
Content-Type:
image/jpeg;
name="FILENAME"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: base64
Content-Disposition: attachment;
filename="FILENAME" ..followed by some garbage
5. The message
will be ABOVE the attachments. Read it to check whether it is a message that
the person intended to send to you. If the message is in HTML, it will be
harder to decipher for those HTML inclined users. In this case, you just have
to try to read the content.
