Administrator information about e-mail security features

As an administrator, you can customize the security features in Outlook 2002. This article summarizes those features, indicates how to customize them, and provides references to additional documentation.

Summary of Security Features

The Microsoft Outlook 2002 e-mail security features provide additional levels of protection against malicious e-mail messages. The security features included with Outlook 2002 can be divided into the following three distinct parts:

• Blocking of potentially unsafe attachments.
• Confirmation of programmatic access to e-mail addresses.
• Confirmation of automatic sending of e-mail messages.

For more information about how Outlook requests confirmation of programmatic access to e-mail addresses and the confirmation of automatically sent e-mail messages, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:
See the "Administering Outlook Security" topics in the Microsoft Office Resource Kit for more information about how to customize the Outlook E-mail Security features. To see the "Administering Outlook Security" topics in the Office Resource Kit, visit the following Microsoft Web site:

How to Customize the Security Settings

Scenario 1

You may need to grant specific Microsoft Exchange Server users access to a particular file type that is commonly sent within the company.

Scenario 2

You may need to give other programs full access to Outlook's e-mail addresses or e-mail message Send functionality. An example is a computer that automatically sends out e-mail messages to specific users on a particular date or after business hours. To avoid having someone present to manually allow the program access, you can modify Outlook to allow another program to gain access to e-mail addresses accessed and automatically send e-mail messages.

To configure Outlook 2002 for the previously mentioned scenarios, an Exchange Server environment is necessary. An Outlook E-mail Security Administrator Package has been developed to allow you to customize the security settings for various Exchange Server users. The Outlook E-mail Security Administrator Package includes a document (Readme.doc) that explains how to customize and apply custom Outlook security settings. You can install the Outlook E-mail Security Administrator Package (Admpack.exe) from one of the following locations:

• From the Microsoft Office Resource Kit Web site. To obtain the Microsoft Office Resource Kit, visit the following Microsoft Web site:
  http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork (http://www.microsoft.com/office/ork)
• From the Microsoft Office XP Enterprise CD located in the following folder:
  
  \Ork\Files\Pfiles\Orktools\Ork10\Tools\Admpack

Note The previously available administrator package included a form with the build number 1802.4. The new Outlook 2002 Security Administrator Package and Outlook 2003 Security Administrator Package includes a form with the build number 1802.5. If you are using Outlook 2002 or Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 with a Microsoft Exchange 2000 Server mailbox or a Microsoft Exchange Server 2003 mailbox, you must use the new form (1802.5) in the security settings public folder. If you use the old form (1802.4), the administrator-controlled settings do not replicate to the Outlook 2002 and Outlook 2003 clients.

Note The Outlook Security Settings folder must be available to client computers at all times. Programs that rely on custom security settings may revert to the default security settings if the Outlook Security Settings folder becomes unavailable. For more information, see the Readme.doc file included with the Administrator Package.

Scenario 3

You may need to grant a non-Exchange Server user access to a particular file type that is commonly sent or received.

You can configure a Microsoft Windows Registry setting to allow a user access to specific restricted file types.