The next series of security patches for Outlook 98 and 2000 have been released. The previous incarnations merely blocked the ability to open certain attachment in Outlook û you had to save the attachment to your hard drive before it could be opened. The new patch strengthens this feature while security has been tightened to prevent e-mails being sent without the userÆs permission. This should hopefully block the automated spread of viruses such as Melissa and Lovebug, which secretly worked in the background without the userÆs knowledge or permission. A third feature is that OutlookÆs security zone has been shifted to "restricted sites" instead of the vulnerable "Internet" zone. As a result of these changes, some automated and advanced features of Outlook will be disabled. There are separate patches for Outlook 98 and 2000, but at press time there is no mention of an enhanced patch for Outlook 97. You can download the patches from this monthÆs CD or www.microsoft.com.

By Scott Mendham