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My school system wants us to start using Outlook for all our mail in favor of the Gmail accounts we currently have. The last time I used Outlook it was a virus-ridden mess, which is why I stopped using it. Is it still a common vector for viruses?

Did you open that attachment with the Anna Kournikova pics?

Probably not significantly more than any other consumer application that processes random content received from potentially malicious strangers over the Internet.

Acrobat Reader and Java seem to have been the worst offenders these past few years (very unscientific observation based on a subjective feeling for how often they seem to get mentioned in connection with malware).

FireGryphon wrote:

My school system wants us to start using Outlook for all our mail in favor of the Gmail accounts we currently have. The last time I used Outlook it was a virus-ridden mess, which is why I stopped using it. Is it still a common vector for viruses?

Now are they looking at using Outlook, or outlook.com (Hotmail?)

Outlook has never been a virus-ridden mess. it just had no protections in place by default and you needed to add virus protection and spam filtering yourself.
And the back end to outlook is Exchange. A proper install you will have spam filtering (something like a Barracuda) to take out 97% of email (in our system that is the number) and some virus scanning as well.

We've been running the infrastructure like this for over 10 years problem free.

Outlook (part of MS Office) has always been a fairly safe program as long as it's kept up to date.

Outlook Express is very much EOL and is/was a buggy pile of trash that malware loves to exploit.

Out look is NOT the problem.. it is the users that are.

Just use common sense. If it doesn't look like something that a person would send, use caution.

I've gotten a few internship offers that only said, "Pays good, contact me" and nothing about the company. I deleted them.

SuperSpy wrote:

Outlook (part of MS Office) has always been a fairly safe program as long as it's kept up to date.

Outlook Express is very much EOL and is/was a buggy pile of trash that malware loves to exploit.

This. Somehow people keep saying Outlook Express is Outlook. Marketing confusion at work.

just brew it! wrote:

Probably not significantly more than any other consumer application that processes random content received from potentially malicious strangers over the Internet.

Acrobat Reader and Java seem to have been the worst offenders these past few years (very unscientific observation based on a subjective feeling for how often they seem to get mentioned in connection with malware).

Based on actual quantitative metrics you're on the right path. The Java JRE is a major issue.

Reader has been attacked, but is not a major source.

maxxcool wrote:

Out look is NOT the problem.. it is the users that are.

1000x this