https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-linux/how-dangerous-could-be-an-application-octet-stream-attachment/m-p/3385611#M14196 The answer here is:<BR /><BR />It depends. <BR /><BR />If I wrote it, it could range from malfunctioning to accidentally dangerous.<BR /><BR />The issue here is the rouce of the attachment. If i send you a binary file, say and .exe it will probably be encoded that way.<BR /><BR />Since I'm a nice guy it probably won't hurt anything.<BR /><BR />Because of their use by malicous folks, .zip files have been blocked at our symantec firwall at work. I know of know way of doing that with the standard Linux firewall.<BR /><BR />You can go out and get a tool that plugs into sendmail and scans attachments and strips them out of the email.<BR /><BR />If you look at an actual email, with an attachment, say in /var/mail/username a binary attachment is just going to be a bunch of unreadable characters. Its possible to write a little job that would find binary attachments and replace them with a notice saying the file was stripped out.<BR /><BR />Its probably a while read -r rr do done type loop.<BR /><BR />SEP Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:36:26 GMT Steven E. Protter 2004-09-23T19:36:26Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-linux/how-dangerous-could-be-an-application-octet-stream-attachment/m-p/3385610#M14195 hi<BR /><BR />what is and how dangerous could be an application/octet-stream attachment ?<BR /><BR />should I block this kind of attachment at the firewall ?<BR /><BR />regards<BR />chris Thu, 23 Sep 2004 16:34:05 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-linux/how-dangerous-could-be-an-application-octet-stream-attachment/m-p/3385610#M14195 'chris' 2004-09-23T16:34:05Z https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-linux/how-dangerous-could-be-an-application-octet-stream-attachment/m-p/3385611#M14196 The answer here is:<BR /><BR />It depends. <BR /><BR />If I wrote it, it could range from malfunctioning to accidentally dangerous.<BR /><BR />The issue here is the rouce of the attachment. If i send you a binary file, say and .exe it will probably be encoded that way.<BR /><BR />Since I'm a nice guy it probably won't hurt anything.<BR /><BR />Because of their use by malicous folks, .zip files have been blocked at our symantec firwall at work. I know of know way of doing that with the standard Linux firewall.<BR /><BR />You can go out and get a tool that plugs into sendmail and scans attachments and strips them out of the email.<BR /><BR />If you look at an actual email, with an attachment, say in /var/mail/username a binary attachment is just going to be a bunch of unreadable characters. Its possible to write a little job that would find binary attachments and replace them with a notice saying the file was stripped out.<BR /><BR />Its probably a while read -r rr do done type loop.<BR /><BR />SEP Thu, 23 Sep 2004 19:36:26 GMT https://community.hpe.com/t5/operating-system-linux/how-dangerous-could-be-an-application-octet-stream-attachment/m-p/3385611#M14196 Steven E. Protter 2004-09-23T19:36:26Z