Yep, Outlook Express, or the second biggest security hole to core of Windows after IE
Sadly, the vast majority of people who I've met are those who still use IE OE, etc and refuse to replace them with anything having even a hint of security. Thats one reason I got away from anything desktop related
What specifically are the security holes in IE and what settings are necessary to counter them, or where can I find out about them?
I just upgraded from my older XP machine to a new desktop with Win7 because of the age of my system and the discontinuation of XP support. With no security updates from MS, it's going to become a hackfest by every twerp with a internet connection and a supply of Redbull. I'm running the current (11?) version of IE and relying on Norton and basic common sense to keep the goblins out (Like not opening Canadian Vi***a ads, or going to websites that use a dictionary in the meta data).
EDIT: Also has anybody used Norton Zone cloud storage? It seems like a good place to put the most critical files.
Well the security holes in both are too numerous to list. You can look for all the patched ones on (Microsoft) technet then subscribe to various security lists and read about all the not yet patched.
The biggest problem with IE and OE are the tight integration with the OS so a security flaw in either becomes a flaw to the core of the OS. While other browsers/email can have security flaws they don't hook deep into the OS so those flaws generally stop at a level where they can't cause too many problems.
A number of years ago before we had so many security programs and other web browsers to choose from I mistyped a web address. A simple
www.gogle instead of
www.google too me to some porn site whose text was in another language and then started popping up many IE windows so fast I had to reboot to stop them. I was running as a non-admin user and still got infected with something that I tried to remove and ended up just rebuilding. Yes (Windows) security has improved since the early days of XP but the integration of end user apps the very core is still the worst thing they ever did to Windows.
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