The security holes affect combinations of Microsoft products including its Internet Explorer browser, Outlook productivity software suite, Outlook Express email client, Visual Basic programming language, Access database application, PowerPoint slide presentation software, Excel spreadsheet software, and ActiveX technology for linking desktop applications such as these with the Web. Taking advantage of lax security restrictions in Microsoft's Outlook Express email program, those viruses quickly swept the Internet by installing and automatically running a Visual Basic script on a victim's computer.
Scripts are lines of code that execute actions on a computer without a person's interaction.
But Outlook remains vulnerable, according to security analysts, who recently discovered several ways to mount attacks through the program. It allows you by sending an email message to execute code on a machine. It could be used to install a back door to steal files from your computer or to create a worm. Once you can execute code in someone's computer, you are in control. In the first security hole, Internet vandals could use ActiveX controls to embed Visual Basic scripts in Access files when victims visit maliciously designed Web pages or open maliciously designed HTML email.