For the most part, the greatest danger in email in the past has been from opening executable attachments containing viruses, worms, Trojans, etc. Using common sense about clicking on attachments, keeping anti-virus programs and the operating system patches up-to-date, and some system configuration should prevent infectious attachments from harming your system. With increasing frequency, however, the email body itself has become a source of infection. By means of HTML code or scripts hidden in the text, malware may get downloaded simply from the act of opening an email for viewing. It is also possible for spammers to track you this way (Web bugs). In this article, I will discuss some ways to avoid getting malware from the main email body or being tracked.
Block graphics
If you are using a web-based email service like Yahoo or Gmail, make sure that the settings are configured to block graphics unless specified otherwise. By default Gmail has a setting to block the display of graphics. A setting “External content” has an option that allows graphics from trusted sources. Yahoo has a setting under “Options-Spam” for blocking graphics but the default is to allow them.
Settings vary among the various locally based email clients so consult the instructions and block the automatic downloading of images by your particular email software.
Scripts and other problems
If you are using Web based mail, you will mostly have to rely on the internal security measures of the provider since there is usually no specific setting for scripts. However, all recent browsers like Internet Explorer 8, Firefox 3.x, and Chrome have extensive security settings. Make sure that these are configured to warn you about unauthorized downloads or scripts.
Locally based email clients should have security settings that guard against scripts. The settings vary but I will show them for the Windows Mail software.
Windows Mail settings
The settings for Windows Mail are found by going to the menu Tools-Options. First, click the “Read” tab. Disable the Preview Pane from automatically downloading. You may also wish to read messages in plain text only. These settings are indicated in the figure below.
Also click the “Security” tab. Your settings should be as shown in the figure below.
(An older description of using Outlook Express is here.)
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