> > Sorry for the OT and more virus stuff.
> >
> > I received some email the other day and all I did was single click a
> > message and as soon as focus shifted to it, some sort of exe program
> > executed, and I'm pretty sure i have a worm or virus or something
> > although the latest VET doesn't report it. All I saw as a
> window open
> > and close so quickly that I couldn't make out what it was.
> >
> > Can anyone tell me how to stop things like this happening with
> > Microsofts mail program? I looked through the options etc.
> but can't see
>
> Stop using the program?? The virus is exploiting a 'mouseover' activex
> function in MS LOOKOUT!! (Outlook).
>
> > how to make my mail just readable - not executable as it pleases.
>
> You have to turn off ActiveX. The only way I've found to do that
> is to nuke the DLL, which breaks a lot of Microsloth stuff.
>
> Have you tried using Netscape or Eudora as your 'safe' email clients?

(accidently sent this directly to the mail sender earlier - email had a
reply-to override..)

Disabling ActiveX will indeed break a lot of Microsoft stuff (and,
presumably, many many other programs if you totally kill it off - VB and
VC++ programs commonly use activex controls)

One simple method is to install a mail server/filter that deletes/renames
any executable attachments - zone alarm pro (www.zonelabs.com) will do this
simply and cheaply, for example.

The second thing to do is to ensure that your pc has the latest version of
Internet Explorer, and the most recent patches for your version of MS
Outlook.

You have virus protection installed, which is good - it's important to keep
that up to date on a regular basis, as well.  If your program does not
support the scanning of incoming email via a pop3 proxy, you may want to
move to a product that does (such as norton anti-virus), or install a virus
scanner at a mail server.

Using another mail client will help problems like these, but do remember
that some of them use microsoft web components for rendering html pages - i
think eudora does this by default - so unless you disable that, you'd
probably be just as vunerable.

The Netscape/Mozilla client seems to be about the best one out there at the
minute, outside of Outlook/Outlook Express.  Plus it's free..

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