<p>Two recently discovered vulnerabilities in mail processing software could give an attacker access to a targeted system without the need for any links to be clicked or attachments to be opened.</p><p>When email security experts talk about "malicious emails", they usually mean emails with malware attached, or emails that link to websites hosting malware. Both are commonly seen in today's spam, and are also regularly used in targeted attacks.</p><p>In fact, the term "malicious email" is something of a misnomer here: there is nothing malicious about the emails themselves, and the simple action of a mail server accepting these emails, or a user viewing them in an email client, won't cause any harm. As a consequence, only static analysis of the attachment and URL tend to be performed by security software, thus making it important for the files and URLs to be scanned when they are accessed.</p><p>However, two recently discovered vulnerabilities demonstrate that in some cases the emails themselves can actually be malicious.</p><p><a href="http://www.virusbtn.com/news/2013/05_07.xml">Keep reading...</a></p>