Chapter 13: Securing Outlook


Overview

Technology—like science—is neutral all through, providing only means of control applicable to any purpose, indifferent to all.

—John von Neumann

E-mail-transmitted malware is an unfortunate fact of life. Malicious code attached to e-mail messages can contain worms or viruses; once one machine becomes infected, highly interconnected e-mail systems allow malware to spread very quickly. How’d we get here? Customers asked for advanced customization features, so Microsoft delivered them as part of the Microsoft Office suite. Some malicious people have used those features for ill, but that’s no different than almost any other technology. In addition, completely disallowing all forms of scripts and executables is a cure worse than the disease; the ideal remedy would be to teach users not to open untrusted attachments. However, that assumes that users will always do what you tell them to do, and we know better. Fortunately, a combination of Outlook features and administrative savvy can be applied to minimize, if not eliminate, the vulnerability.

Of course, e-mail-borne malware gets the lion’s share of press attention, but Outlook offers many useful security features, notably support for the Secure Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (S/MIME) message security protocol, plus a variety of smaller security tweaks that you can apply to tighten your desktop users’ security.




Secure Messaging with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000
Secure Messaging with Microsoft Exchange Server 2000
ISBN: 735618763
EAN: N/A
Year: 2003
Pages: 169

flylib.com © 2008-2017.
If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net