This is a heads up to everyone out there who may or may not be aware of a more recent e-mail threat.  Most of you are accustomed to seeing e-mail attachments from people you don't even know, and for the most part, a lot of you don't even open the e-mail, and simply permanently delete it. 

However, there's recently been a rise in "blank e-mails" coming into many people's e-mail inboxes.  In some cases, it appears to come from someome you know, and in other cases, you don't know who it's from at all.  The thing that catches many off guard is that there's no visible attachment.  Instead, some people are suspicious and think they'll open their Outlook or Outlook Express Preview Pane hoping to get a peek at what could possibly be in it.  You don't see anything on the e-mail itself, and it appears to be blank, but, what you may not realize is that there's HTML or VBS code embedded in the body of the e-mail, designed to execute when the e-mail is opened, or even when the Preview Pane is opened. 

Hackers or attackers are becoming more sophisticated with the tools they're using to fool unsuspecting users into opening e-mail from someone they don't know.  Of course, the rule of thumb is, if you don't know who it's from, don't open it.  And of course, if it doesn't have an attachment, and is from someone you don't know, that should send some warning signals to you.  The best advice here, is to treat it as though it were a virus/worm and permanently delete it, and of course, ensure that your antivirus definitions are updated regularly.  Anti-virus updates for McAfee Anti-Virus, Norton Anti-Virus, PC-Cillin, Sophos, F-Secure, and Panda can be found at their respective download links.