Microsoft Outlook (Express) bug..

[mb () SKYPOINT COM (Matthew J. Brown)]

Hello.

Recently we've been receiving calls from customers not being able to check
their e-mail because Outlook/Outlook Express says to check their "Memory
and Diskspace" (or something along those lines..).  I began looking at
their /var/mail/ mailbox, and I noticed a similarity with all of
them.  They had receieved some spam which had left the "BCC:" and
"Reply-to:" headers blank.  So I attempted to reproduce the error, and it
worked.  Outlook Express wouldn't retreive any e-mail, if there was an
e-mail that had those two feilds blank!  I couldn't believe it.  I
attempted to contact Microsoft early last week, but received no reply.  I
haven't had much of a chance to test versions or anything as of yet, so
feel free.  It would certainly be unfortunate if someone were to write a
program that would generate an e-mail like this, and do some mass
mailing.. ;-)

This may have already been mentioned, if so, disregard this e-mail.

Maybe now that the public is aware of this, Microsoft will get their act
together (yeah, right..) and patch this.  It seems rediculous that leaving
those headers would cause any problem.. but it does.

Have fun.  :-)

Matthew J. Brown
Skypoint Network Technician
mb () skypoint com