[clug] Linux email server that strips down attachments?

[Andrew Janke]

antiword might be a start here, but it wont do all the things you
need. I used it many years ago, not sure if its still up to date.

a


On 2 July 2017 at 21:06, Hugh Fisher via linux <linux at lists.samba.org> wrote:
> For a change of topic from the impending doom of CLUG…
>
> Is there, or could there be, a Linux email server that strips all the
> code and interactivity from incoming attachments while leaving the
> content readable?
>
> I'm now in my second job working with mostly non-technical folk, and
> I'm seeing a lot of attachments being emailed around, mostly DOCX
> (Microsoft Word) and PDFs. Now the first reaction of anyone who
> follows the regular stories about phishing and malware spread through
> email is "Nooo! Don't do that!" and trying to convince people to
> change their ways.
>
> Which I've come to recognise won't work. A lot of people write emails
> in Word format because Word is their usual writing tool, just a a lot
> of hackers read and write email within Emacs. And PDFs are usually the
> best way to send around reports, design proposals, anything where the
> appearance needs to be evaluated. Banning attachments is not
> realistic.
>
> However, these documents are not being emailed around for editing.
> Office 365, Google Docs, Dropbox, whatever, are well established for
> collaborative work. At least 95% of the time the recipient just needs
> to read them, nothing else.
>
> So, I imagine that these organisations would be considerably more
> secure with an email server that examined and stripped down all
> incoming attachments. Use the Libre Office code to take apart the
> DOCXs and PDFs. Strip out every macro and embedded font, every
> fragment of Javascript or Visual Basic, even hyperlinks. Re-assemble
> as a pure read-only document and send it on.
>
> Doable?
>
>
> --
>
>         cheers,
>         Hugh Fisher
>
> --
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