What is this?
More than 90% of malware is delivered by email.1
-2021 Verizon Data Breaches Investigations Report
The college is always looking at ways we can better secure our users and systems. With email being one of the main communications platforms we have focused on protecting our users there. The college has offered cybersecurity awareness training and malicious email reporting through the Beauceron platform to better educate college employees and students on the various risks to them and the college as a whole. We have deployed an advanced email security system that will better catch spam, phishing, and malware coming into our email.
This new system means there will be some small changes to how emails are handled when being delivered to you.
- We will be adding TAGs to some email subject lines to better inform you if an email may be suspicious, spam, or a newsletter.
- We will be sanitizing/cleaning some email attachments to make it safer for you to open them, worry free.
- Helping to keep your inbox clean with your Junk Mail folder.
Tags
Tags will be added the the start of an emails subject to show you when there is something to be aware of.
| [SPAM] |
Messages with the [SPAM] tag may be unwanted, contain ads, or be coming from untrusted [but not dangerous] sources. |
| [SUSPICIOUS LINK] |
Links in these messages are pointing to new, untrusted, or unknown websites. Be cautious when interacting with these messages and do not click any links unless you know the message is safe or are expecting it. |
|
[ORIGINAL] and
[SANITIZED]
|
These tags come in pairs - you will receive 2 email, one with each tag. This is done when you are sent an email with a potentially malicious attachment.
The email with the [SANITIZED] tag has been cleaned - the email contents are what was originally sent, but the attachment has had any potentially malicious content removed - attachments like macro enabled Word [.docm] and Excel [.xlsm] documents or PDF files with embedded scripts in them.
There will be times you need the attachment unaltered - you may be expecting the email, and need to be able to use the macros/scripts. The email with the [ORIGINAL] tag has the original email attached, with the unaltered attachment that you can open/save.
|
[ORIGINAL] and [SANITIZED] Tags
When you receive an email with a potentially malicious attachment, you will receive 2 emails:
- This email contains the original email sent, with the unaltered attachment. If you are expecting the email, or need the attachment with the scripting or macro then it can be saved/opened from here.
- This email has been cleaned. It is the safer option if you just need to read the attachment, or are unsure if it is safe to open.
Email with the [ORIGINAL] tag:
- The original email from the sender, unaltered. All attachments macros and scripts are intact. If you do not know the sender, are not expecting the email/attachment, or an unsure if the attachment is safe then open the attachment from the [SANITIZED] email.
- The subject for the cleaned email.
- Information on original the email that was sent to you - the sender, subject, and date/time sent.
Email with the [SANITIZED] tag:
This email will look like the original as sent by the sender except the attachment has been cleaned, making it safe to open/save.
- The cleaned attachment - all data/contents should be the same with any macro/scripting stripped out.
- The unaltered message as sent by the sender.
Junk Email Folder
The new email security system will also deliver suspicious or spam messages in your Junk Email folder rather than your inbox:
Unfortunately there can be false positives or incorrectly tagged emails, you should monitor this folder so important messages not accidentally missed, delete junk and unwanted email and move incorrectly tagged or wanted emails to their proper folder. If you notice email being incorrectly tagged repeatedly then you can use the following service request to let us know:
1 https://www.graphus.ai/blog/verizon-says-phishing-still-drives-90-of-cybersecurity-breaches/