Spam and Phishing

Mohawk College uses Microsoft Exchange Online Protection (EOP) an email filtering service that helps protect our organization against spam, phishing and malware. Exchange Online Protection includes features to safeguard Mohawk College's network, computers and users from potential threats sent by email.

What is Spam

Email spam, also known as junk email, is unsolicited messages sent in bulk by email. Most email spam messages are commercial in nature. Whether commercial or not, many contain disguised links that appear to be for familiar websites but in fact lead to phishing websites or sites that are hosting malware. Spam email may also include malware as scripts or other executable file attachments (trojans).

What is Phishing

Phishing is an identity-theft scam that uses "spoofed" or fake emails and websites to trick people into giving out personal information, such as credit card numbers, usernames and passwords, or social security numbers. Phishing is usually done by hijacking the brand identity of a bank or an online store in a spoofed email that is sent to large numbers of people. The email will usually contain a link to a web page designed to look just like a legitimate company's site. A phishing scam will use this page to capture any information that you provide, then sell or use the information for malicious purposes.

Quarantine - Did some of my emails get blocked?

Check your quarantine

If you suspect an email may have been blocked you can check your Quarantine by going to Quarantined Email. From your Quarantine you can review emails that have been blocked as Spam or Bulk. See instructions below on how to release messages to your Inbox.

Release a blocked message

To release a suspected blocked message visit your Quarantined Email

 

Searching for a blocked message

You can search your Quarantine for blocked message by browsing the list of email or use the search options to better search for a message. Search Options include Sender or Recipient email address, Subject line or Message ID. Search results may also be filtered by time and date.

*** Please note that when searching by Subject you need to provide the exact Subject to match. This will not search for a specific word in a subject line.

Screenshot showing Quarantine Search options

Email may also be blocked due to a bulk threshold. Select either Spam or Bulk from the drop down at the top of your quarantine

Screenshot showing Quarantine options for SPAM and Bulk

Release an email to your inbox

To release an email to your inbox select the message and click the Release message button to release the email.

Screenshot showing buttons to release a message

How many days are email kept in the Quarantine?

Quarantine emails are stored for 30 days. 30 days after the email was originally sent it will be permanently deleted.

Report Spam or Phishing

Report your Spam\Phishing to IT and Microsoft EOP for better filtering

Please submit your spam and phishing emails to Microsoft to help improve SPAM and Phishing filtering.  Using the built-in reporting tools sends copies of the suspicious emails to Mohawk IT as well as Microsoft.

Office 365\Webmail:

  1. Right-Click on the SPAM email and select Mark as junk.

Outlook 2016/2019 (Windows):

  1. Right-Click on the SPAM email and select Junk -> Report as Junk or Report as Phishing

Adding a Sender to the Blocked Senders List

Office 365 (Students):

  1. Click on the gear icon in the top right corner.

  2. Scroll the gear panel down to the bottom and select Mail

  3. On the left hand side, select Mail -> Accounts -> Block or Allow

  4. Under Blocked Senders, enter the sender's email address and click the + button. ​

Webmail (Staff):

  1. Click on the gear icon in the top right corner.

  2. Scroll the gear panel down to the bottom and select Options

  3. On the left hand side, select Block or Allow

  4. Select Automatically filter junk email

  5. Under Blocked Senders, enter the sender's email address and click the + button. ​

  6. Click Save

Outlook 2016 (Windows):

  1. On the Home tab, in the Delete group, click Junk, and then click Junk E-mail Options.
  2. On the Blocked Senders tab, click Add.
  3. In the Enter an e-mail address or Internet domain name to be added to the list box, enter the name or address that you want to add.
  4. Click OK and repeat for each entry that you want to add.

Adding a Sender to the Safe Senders List

Office 365 (Students):

  1. Click on the gear icon in the top right corner.

  2. Scroll the gear panel down to the bottom and select Mail

  3. On the left hand side, select Mail -> Accounts -> Block or Allow

  4. Select Automatically filter junk email

  5. Under Safe Senders and Recipients, enter the sender's email address and click the + button. ​

  6. Click Save

Webmail (Staff):

  1. Click on the gear icon in the top right corner.

  2. Scroll the gear panel down to the bottom and select Options

  3. On the left hand side, select Block or Allow

  4. Select Automatically filter junk email

  5. Under Safe Senders and Recipients, enter the sender's email address and click the + button. ​

  6. Click Save

Outlook 2016 (Windows):

  1. Select the message that was incorrectly identified as junk

  2. On the Home tab, in the Delete group, click Junk, and then click Junk E-mail Options.

  3. Safe Senders tab, click Add.

  4. In the Enter an e-mail address to the list box, enter the name or address that you want to add.

  5. Click the + plus sign to the right of the dialog box and repeat for each entry that you want to add.