Other vulnerabilities inherent in HTML e-mail include the ability to run Visual Basic scripts, ActiveX controls, and Macromedia flash, all of which can execute unauthorized and unsafe code.

Create your own HTML e-mail newsletter Download a newsletter template and send it to a subset of your Outlook or Thunderbird contacts--without the messages getting caught in spam filters.

The Twitter protest again Microsoft Outlook is losing steam, but the question remains: Is HTML e-mail dangerous or is Microsoft using security as a reason not to comply with Web standards?

The post features a side-by-side comparison of a typical HTML e-mail, and the comparison makes it look as if Outlook 2007 is unable to do CSS altogether.

Open the e-mail, and the message window becomes, in effect, a mini-browser, running the HTML code that’s part of the message. Browsers don’t run just HTML code.

Another method of stopping e-mail viruses is HTML stripping. This is a process by which HTML tags with the capacity to interact with system functions are removed -- leaving only the formatted text ...

Select "E-mail Security" in the left pane. Clear the box next to "Read All Standard Mail in Plain Text" to make Outlook display messages in HTML by default.

Microsoft warns of a hole in Internet Explorer 5.01 and 5.5 allows an attacker to automatically open e-mail attachments and execute malicious code.