Questions tagged [email-attachments]
The email-attachments tag has no usage guidance.
61 questions
2
votes
2
answers
141
views
If I try to open a PDF that is password protected inside an email, can I harm my PC [closed]
I have my own Office 365 tenant, and yesterday I got an email from the IT manager of an eligible chemical company in India, where the email contains a password-protected PDF. The email did not go to ...
4
votes
1
answer
288
views
Do I need to worry about infection from a .PDF from an untrusted sender previewed within GMail?
Context: I received an email claiming an order has been shipped for a service that I am subscribed to but did not believe was due for renewal. I panicked and clicked to preview the attached invoice ...
- 43
11
votes
3
answers
3k
views
When I attach a sensitive pdf encrypted by Adobe with a password, and send it through Gmail with password included, does it make any difference?
Nowadays, many people would attach a sensitive pdf encrypted by Adobe with a password and send it through Gmail with password included (in the same email or different one).
However, I wonder if this ...
- 211
33
votes
6
answers
8k
views
Is .txt the only email attachment type that can always be opened without risk?
Is .txt the only email attachment type that can always be opened without risk?
Source of the claim: Training program on phishing at my company
- 463
0
votes
2
answers
259
views
Why don't we sandbox email clients company-wide?
Following on to questions like Sandbox for attachment accessment and How do I safely inspect a suspicious email attachment?.
Why don't we sandbox email clients company-wide?
I must be missing ...
- 190
0
votes
1
answer
602
views
Security impact of Mail attachment type message/rfc822
I am currently developing a tool that transfers emails and their attachments from Outlook to a local folder.
Currently, I am denying the message/rfc822 attachment because of legacy code reasons.
Now I ...
2
votes
3
answers
6k
views
Accidently opened a phishing email .docx attachment on my iPhone, should I worry?
Two days ago, I received an email saying as object "March rent" in French. It says time to pay my rent for the month of March, and got the email March 1st... I thought this was my landlord ...
- 201
0
votes
0
answers
2k
views
How to inspect for potential malware on pdf attachment?
I received an email at work the other day from a client (with the correct email address) that had a pdf attached. When I opened the pdf, it said the client had required the recipient to login to ...
- 9
2
votes
4
answers
1k
views
Email with an attached file vs. email with a link to a file
We have a software that sends out invoices by email. As the invoices contain the names of the clients and their addresses we consider the invoice to be sensitive to some degree.
Rather than sending ...
- 121
32
votes
5
answers
7k
views
Is there any security benefit from emailing a "secure link"?
Sometimes I receive email messages from organisations I'm involved with saying something like:
Alice at AnyCo has sent you a secure message
Along with a link to access said message. Sometimes I'm ...
- 2,027
1
vote
1
answer
495
views
What's the point of password protecting your document in a 1st email, then writing the password in a 2nd email within 5 minutes?
What security is gained from this procedure? What does this procedure accomplish? Many professionals do this, like government officials and lawyers.
First, they email me the attachment (e.g. PDF, Word ...
user204891
0
votes
1
answer
131
views
Could one malicious email attachment contaminate all attachments in my cloud email account?
Could one malicious email attachment contaminate all attachments in my cloud email account? There are various preview functionalities available in Gmail or Microsoft Outlook that would effectively ...
- 53
1
vote
2
answers
751
views
Got an e-mail with weird text and an .htm attachment. What does it do?
Here's the text from that e-mail (no subject)
31725714 65
TJBPYEW YBTLI UNILPW FPW J II
NSWKW LGKJQBS PVGVQX ZEWW WQUWFZ VT
Here's the code from the attachment I extracted with Notepad++:
https://...
- 11
0
votes
1
answer
283
views
Is there any security risk in sending a dangerous file via email to oneself?
Most common email services don't allow to attach file like exe files, or similar files that may contain security threats to a computer.
This can be bugging for users, but I can understand that, in ...
- 149
4
votes
1
answer
214
views
Malicious email in Outlook Sent folder, could it be a clickjacking exploit? [closed]
Recently I discovered there are malicious emails (with HTM attachment) in the Sent folder of an @hotmail account to some unknown recipients in (Outlook app in iPad). I immediately proceed to change ...
- 171
1
vote
1
answer
794
views
E-mail with just an image attached: could it be an attack? [closed]
Today I received an e-mail to my GMail account with just an image attached, empty subject and body. E-mail came from another GMail account, with SPF and other checks passed. Sender account differs ...
1
vote
1
answer
1k
views
Sending securely attachments over email
Email exchange is not a secure means of communication despite using SSL to connect to (all/most?) the email providers.
What I am not sure though, is what is a good way to send important information ...
- 193
0
votes
0
answers
162
views
How to determine if a PC is safe after receiving a suspicious email message
I was checking my gmail account spam folder and I noticed an email sent by a known sender.
I thought it was flagged as spam by mistake so I opened it. Then I realized the content is the same as ...
1
vote
1
answer
257
views
How I can read and handle MS Office documents, such as doc/ppt files, securely?
I've heard of too many horror stories of people opening a seemingly innocent docx or pptx file that they've got from a business partner, only to find out that it had embedded malware inside. What ...
- 363
2
votes
1
answer
235
views
New trend? Recognizable and specific subject in Spam / malware mails
It seems that a new trend has emerged in the past few weeks. While users are (meanwhile) aware that an unexpected mail with subject "Your invoice" or "Your delivery" is suspicious, ...
- 1,158
0
votes
0
answers
301
views
Handling file uploads securely in phpmailer/php
I have a lengthy HTML form with around 20-26 file uploads required and some of them are even multiple. I am really concerned about how secure it is. I would really like to have some secure solution to ...
- 1
0
votes
2
answers
436
views
Secure way of sending an email attachment in a user-friendly manner
In the last months I very often was in a position where I needed to send an email attachments with sensitive content to someone whom I didn't know well personally (so that I could talk to them how set ...
- 53
0
votes
2
answers
407
views
Phishing emails - What do I look for?
I want to be able to spot a phishing email. What are the things to check when investigating and doing forensics on one?
There are some things I know to look for already but I want to get moer ...
45
votes
7
answers
12k
views
Why do email server/clients block executable attachments?
If I send an email with an .exe attachment to an Outlook recipient, the email client blocks the attachment and the recipient has no way of overriding this security setting (short of making certain ...
user225011
0
votes
0
answers
72
views
Safe way to open potentially compromised attachments [duplicate]
I have in my inbox what I believe to be (95% sure) a phishing attack email or my IT department doing a phishing attack knowledge awareness campaign.
I'm a very curious person by nature and I'd like ...
- 143
0
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Possible dangers of .doc files
I just recieved some generic work related mail with word file attached that was requesting to Enable Editing in order to view its content. I'm not going to fall for it but it got me wondering. What ...
- 103
0
votes
2
answers
18k
views
Possible attack via Netflix; what action should I take, if any?
Late last night I received a "password reset" email from [email protected].
It looked legit, but I had not requested a password reset. I checked my account's "recent account access" but saw ...
- 353
0
votes
1
answer
961
views
Are there any kinds of ID where it would be safe to email a photocopy of that ID?
I am developing an online registration form for a discount program whose eligibility can be determined by examining a person's ID. When a user submits the form, he or she is asked to upload a ...
- 103
5
votes
3
answers
2k
views
What's the point of S/MIME?
I received an email recently which displayed as an empty body with a smime.p7m attachment. After some Googling, I discovered it was an encrypted email -- neat! So I started looking for the key. But... ...
anon
3
votes
2
answers
578
views
How this tracking (and more) was done using an image in an email?
As reported in the NY Times, there was some type of electronic spying in a high-profile military trial. Its claimed that the prosecutors were spying on the defense:
The court-martial ... has been ...
- 131
1
vote
0
answers
275
views
Email PDF Attachment altered 'in transit'
I've tried searching a few terms but can't really answer my question.
We have a system which sends out invoices and we have had a couple of instances with one individual where the PDF attachment has ...
- 11
0
votes
2
answers
278
views
ML approach to malicious attachments using email contents
Based on my understanding of the field, it seems like there is a lot of attention paid to spam filtering based on the contents and metadata of an email, and there is considerable attention paid to ...
- 133
10
votes
2
answers
8k
views
Is it possible to get infected by opening an email in Android Gmail app?
I just received an email from an unknown person, titled "da vinci" and containing a docx file with the same name. Not suspicious at all, right?
I have not opened or downloaded the file, but:
The ...
- 203
3
votes
2
answers
2k
views
I received an encrypted email attachment as a reply to a previous conversation, months later
As in the title - I received an email reply to a months old thread containing a password protected zip file. I had previously asked them for a particular CAD file, but this was months ago and we had ...
- 155
53
votes
2
answers
11k
views
How do US government agencies open their email attachments?
I suppose the FBI receives email with attachments, like any other government agency: documents, resumes/CVs, etc. I also suppose they are very careful not to get infected, more than the average user, ...
- 15.9k
3
votes
0
answers
149
views
Search function in Outlook and attachements
I am wondering how the search function of Outlook is working, especially in regards to researching key words that are presents in emails attachements. Does the Outlook search function opens the files ...
- 31
3
votes
3
answers
21k
views
How to inspect an email attachment without downloading it?
I accidentally opened a PDF email attachment on an Android phone as I was trying to figure out if the email was fraud or a scam. It was an email claiming I booked a flight and the pdf had my e-tickets....
- 41
0
votes
3
answers
113
views
Sending email from my provider back to my provider with data from user input secure?
My boss wants me to create the following functionality:
A user fills out a form on our website with some data. He can also upload some files, which have personal information.
After the form is ...
- 157
0
votes
4
answers
2k
views
Proving a forwarded email attachment was not modified
There was an issue and my employer asked me to forward the email that I sent out to a client a few days prior. The email contained 3 PDF attachments and I immediately sent this to my manager. I am ...
2
votes
2
answers
363
views
Downloaded "DHL" fraud email to Linux, action needed?
Yesterday I ordered a package and today received an email from "DHL". I downloaded an attachment from the email and clicked it. It opened a htm page. (I did not fill out any information.)
I now ...
- 129
0
votes
3
answers
552
views
Executable files in email attachments on UNIX
.EXE files are a danger in email attachments, and are usually blocked by Windows email clients. How is this on UNIX/macOS, where executables don't have an extension?
Based on the file data, how do ...
- 1,821
2
votes
2
answers
194
views
Can email be secured by the receiver only, without action by the sender?
An established financial institution just directed me to email them a document with sensitive information. When I questioned the security, the CS rep and manager both tried to assure me that, "...
- 123
4
votes
2
answers
503
views
E-Mail attachments can be opened using their URL in webmail even after logging off
My E-Mail is on Bell Net. I noticed today what I thought was a major security hole. Then I wasn't sure so I wanted to post this.
I discovered that even though I have logged off my E-Mail, I can still ...
- 41
1
vote
1
answer
15k
views
What's the risk in downloading a .pdf from a phishing email?
I've received an email which is an obvious phishing attempt. However, a .pdf has been attached which I want to open, just out of curiosity!
What are the risks in downloading .pdf files from unknown ...
- 113
1
vote
1
answer
1k
views
I need to download and open an email attachment but how to check if it's safe before?
Someone sent a 39 kb file email attachment.
A strange picture appears over the attachment. I didn't open it.
I would need to check the file but I'm afraid it's a scam.
I was planning to log into my ...
- 481
-1
votes
1
answer
168
views
Transferring potentially malicious e-mail attachments to air-gapped machine
Overview: I am interested in having an e-mail account designated for receiving anonymous tips as part of a larger anonymous tip infrastructure at my business. My professional domain's e-mail is ...
- 187
0
votes
2
answers
589
views
How can I select a compression utility that is popular and secure enough
In a previous posting on Which is a safe way to transfer a copy of a sensitive document?, I have received suggestions to compress and encrypt an attachment file using the options of utilities such as ...
- 955
6
votes
3
answers
4k
views
Which is a safe way to transfer a copy of a sensitive document?
A reputable and clearly identified institution asked me, for legitimate reasons, to e-mail a scan of the passport. However, I regard the passport as a sensitive document and am pretty reluctant to use ...
- 955
0
votes
1
answer
245
views
How does Thunderbird quarantine downloaded emails? Is it dangerous to download emails and store them offline?
There shouldn't be a high security risk as long as the email attachments aren't opened / executed by the user but it could still be a risk and maybe I'm wrong.
So how does Thunderbird quarantine ...
- 393
19
votes
4
answers
3k
views
What lessons can be learned from the latest spate of Ransomware attacks? [closed]
I'm not sure this is the right place, but figured people would find it useful if they aren't too familiar with security policies and general best practices.
There is a lot of information out there, ...
- 329