| Security |
  
|
| Security |
|
User Passwords
These should provide reasonable security as proprietary methods are used for storing them. One user cannot see another's mail. As with all passwords, the longer they are the more difficult they are to find by trial and error methods. MailCOPA will accept passwords up to 12 characters.
The usual advice applies of course:
•Do not choose obvious passwords, like family or pet names which might be known to an intruder.
•Avoid words that can be found in a dictionary, as dictionary searches are a standard (and relatively quick) way of finding passwords. Combinations of words are usually safe.
Scripts and Attachments.
The HTML editor/viewer used in MailCOPA does not support scripts or ActiveX controls, and is entirely independent of Internet Explorer, so does not suffer from any of its security problems.
'Web bugs', where by an image is fetched from the internet, which alerts the sender that you have viewed the message may be prevented from operating if you have opted not to display online images in the HTML Preferences or in the Folder Properties.
Security can be breached if a malicious attachment to a message is run, and you should be be very cautious with any attachments you receive, even those apparently from impeccable sources (it is possible for messages to be sent on some systems without the owner's knowledge or consent).
If you have a virus scanner installed, attachments can be quickly and easily scanned from within MailCOPA (assuming that your virus scanner adds an entry to the context menu in Windows Explorer). Go to the Attachments Window and right click on the attachment: select your virus scanner from the context menu, and it will be scanned.
Note that the attachment will be saved to a temporary file for this to be done, but the file will be deleted when MailCOPA is next closed (it isn't possible for MailCOPA to know when the virus scanner has finished with it). If you should find a virus in an attachment, it would be wise to deal with the attachment immediately (delete it or save it in a secure place if you wish to look at it more closely if you are sure you know what you are doing) and to close MailCOPA immediately afterwards to wipe the temporary file from your hard disc.
Note that temporary files cannot be deleted if they are held open by another application: in the above scenario, they would normally only be held open if you had opened the temporary file in another piece of software.
Data Security.
Version 11 introduced a new more robust transactional built-in database, which considerably reduces the chances of data loss. Any changes to the database are accompanied by a record of those changes. If a problem should occur during the making of the changes, then all changes will automatically be rolled back.
In Version 13 the ability was introduced to use a MySQL database instead of the built-in database. MySQL is well tried and tested, but it is still important to backup your data. We do not provide support for the use of a MySQL database.
See also the help page on Deleting Messages.