smileycentral spyware via 'good luck' email?

From: nutso fasst (no.replies_at_no.where)
Date: 03/20/05 

Date: Sat, 19 Mar 2005 18:06:57 -0800

I recently forwarded a 'funny' email from a relative. When I opened it, I
was hit with the MSIE notification I was about to visit a secure website.
Since there is no way to say "NO!" to this notification, I forced Outlook to
close via Task Manager.

I later saved the message as a msg file and inspected the HTML part. It was
a 'pass it on and have good luck' message filled with references to
smileycentral.com, both to web pages and .gif files. But none of these
addresses were HTTPS. The only thing I can figure is that one of the image
files was being redirected to a secure site.

What would be the purpose of this? Is there a vulnerability in Outlook
2000/MSIE that would allow smileycentral to install spyware via such an
email?

thanks,
nf

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