Microsoft Outlook Express Attachments

Attachments are used to send supporting files and information that is too large to fit inside the email.

Are attachments unsafe?

Email is probably the most popular method of spreading viruses. These viruses can be present in the email itself or in an attachment.

 All Outlook Express attachments should be treated as unsafe and not be opened unless you are sure that they are virus free.

The problem with Outlook Express attachments prior to Outlook Express 6 was that you had to open or at least view the message before you could do anything with the attachment.

Once you had opened or previewed the message you could then click on the attachment and either open the attachment or save it. You should always save an attachment before opening it.

 Once the attachment is saved on you hard disk you should then virus check it before opening it.

So how do you determine if an attachment is safe or if an attachment is unsafe? The general rule is that if the attachment contains executable code then the attachment is potentially unsafe.

Executable files on windows have extensions like .bat ,.cmd and so these are the most obvious ones that people are very wary of.

The problem today is that many applications e.g. word, excel embed executable code (macros) in what was previously considered to be a pure data file.

Outlook Express 6.0 introduced a new feature that will block attachments by file type using a Microsoft provided file type list. Therefore removing the need for the user to understand what file types are potentially unsafe.

Blocking Outlook Express attachments

It should be noted that unsafe attachment blocking is enabled automatically in Outlook Express 6.0 with SP1. To learn more about this see this article: Unsafe Attachments Blocked in Outlook Express.

Blocking unsafe Outlook Express attachments  -“which method?

Unsafe attachment-blocking security setting

The unsafe attachment-blocking feature is the easiest to configure, as it is a simple check box under the options-security-settings tab. This setting bocks all attachments that Microsoft considers unsafe. Whether an attachment is unsafe or not is determined by the file extension on the attachment.

There is a complete list of unsafe extensions here. In general you have little control over this unsafe file list as Microsoft issues it. There is a freeware tool for modifying the unsafe list called Detachol but this will only work for Microsoft Outlook and not for Outlook Express.

Using Message rules to block unsafe Outlook Express attachments

 If you are interested in configuring message rules to block attachments then please see the following articles which contain a step by step guide.
Configuring Microsoft Outlook Express message rules to Block messages with attachments

Using Both message rules and unsafe file blocking

Removing and extracting attachments

This results in the attachment usually occupies space in the mailbox and on the file system as it was also saved onto the hard disk.

 By removing the attachment from the message prior to saving the message you have a much smaller and manageable mailbox store. In order to do this you need to use some third party tools like:
OE Quick tools
Outlook Express Attachment Extractor

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