To help protect the TWU community from phishing and impersonation attempts, Microsoft Exchange (Outlook) will now display additional email safety tips and warnings. These indicators appear at the top of certain emails to help you slow down, verify, and avoid scams.
New Safety Tips You’ll See
- First Contact Safety Tip
- Notifies you when someone emails you for the first time or if you don’t regularly communicate with them.
- User Impersonation (Fake Sender) Safety Tip
- Warns if an email appears to be from someone you know but may not actually be them.
- Example message: “This sender appears to be similar to someone who previously sent you an email but may not be that person.”
- Domain Impersonation (Fake Organization) Safety Tip
- Flags emails pretending to come from a domain associated with TWU or another organization.
- Example message: “This sender might be impersonating a domain that’s associated with your organization.”
- Unusual Character (User Impersonation) Safety Tip
- Alerts you to email addresses containing unexpected or unusual characters, often used to mimic legitimate addresses.
Example message: “The email address MARY@CoNTᴏSO.CᴏM includes unexpected letters or numbers. We recommend you don’t interact with this message.”
Note: These tips do not automatically mean an email is malicious—they are strong signals to pause, verify, and avoid clicking links or opening attachments unless you are confident the message is legitimate.
What To Do If You See a Suspicious Email
- Do not interact with the email.
- Report it using the “Report Suspicious” tool in Outlook or Gmail.
- If you have questions or think an email was flagged incorrectly, submit a ticket to the ITS Service Desk.
Stay vigilant, verify before clicking, and help keep TWU community safe!