E-mails With .eml Attachments Get Kicked Back

[baileyvo]

I am unable to recieve an e-mail with a .eml attachment. When someone tries to forward an e-mail as an attachment, they receive the following error message:

"This message has been rejected because it has
a potentially executable attachment "****.eml"
This form of attachment has been used by
recent viruses or other malware.
If you meant to send this file then please
package it up as a zip file and resend it."

I am not aware of any viruses that come with a .eml attachment. Is there any way to stop this?

[stratplan]

check this reference out:
http://www.f-secure.com/v-descs/finaldo.shtml

so maybe it is a good idea?

[Jim]

An Exim mail server is set up by default with the following file extensions in the virus filter:

ba[st],chm,cmd,com,cpl,crt,eml,exe,hlp,hta,in[fs],isp,jse?,lnk,md[be],ms[cipt],pcd,pif,reg,scr,sct,shs,url,vb[se],ws[fhc]),

To get through an Exim mail server these file types must be zipped. This stops the possibility of a virus from coming in and instantly going back out 1000 fold to other mail servers. It also keeps our servers off someones blacklist if such a thing did occur.

Also since widows is (unwisely) set up by default to hide the file extension of known file types it will hide such potentially destructive filenames like "frogblender.exe.pif". The .pif file is hidden so the person sees the the file frogblender.exe and say's "Hey there's the frog in blender thingy!" Clicks on it and starts sending viruses out from our server by the hundreds.

[harveyc]

Jim, I had an e-mail that was sent get kicked back even though the e-mail had no attachments. It had the following link http://www.agroforestry.co.uk/fruit.html#Nuts and just a couple of text sentences. The sender received the following message:

This message was created automatically by mail delivery software (Exim).

A message that you sent could not be delivered to one or more of its recipients. This is a permanent error. The following address(es) failed:

me@domain.com
This message has been rejected because it has
a potentially executable attachment "Seeds & plants A-L.url"
This form of attachment has been used by
recent viruses or other malware.
If you meant to send this file then please
package it up as a zip file and resend it.


Also, what's confusing, is that when he forwared me the rejected message it came through to me okay even though it contained everything in the original message. When I replied to that message, however, Exim rejected it and returned it to me.

Can you tell me why this message was rejected and what I can do to avoid this problem? Thanks