| When users drag email messages from Outlook to a Windows Explorer window or to their Desktop, Outlook creates an .msg file using the native character encoding format for the configured locale (the so-called "ANSI" format). If this setting is Enabled, Outlook uses the Unicode character encoding standard to create the message file, which preserves special characters in the message.
However, Unicode text is vulnerable to homograph attacks, in which characters are replaced by different but similar-looking characters. For example, the Cyrillic letter "?" (U+0430) appears identical to the Latin letter "a" (U+0061) in many typefaces, but is actually a different character. Homographs can be used in "phishing" attacks to convince victims to visit fraudulent websites and enter sensitive information. |
