one of the reasons people keep saying "Don't use Outlook" is that not only is MS Outlook "targeted" by creators of viruses; but there are a lot of "hooks" available in Outlook that ALLOW the viruses to a) infect you in the first place and b) spread like wildfire.

The worst part is - SOME of those hooks are active even if you do not USE the program but if you have it installed on the machine!!!! (and NOT having Outlook installed is difficult - because MS has done it's best to build it into the operating system. Outlook in one form or another is installed by default with a number of different MS products. (sometimes without even giving you an option to not install it.)