Microsoft continues its war against spam and phishing emails
Their rollout of a new feature in Office 365 called 'Unverified Sender'. It is designed to help Outlook users identify emails that may contain poisoned files or requests for personal or sensitive information that could be used to steal a user's identity.
The company had this to say about the new feature
"Unverified Sender is a new Office 365 feature that helps end-users identify suspicious messages in their inbox... we've added an indicator that demonstrates Office 365 spoof intelligence was unable to verify the sender."
When you toggle the new feature on, any email in your inbox that the Artificial Intelligence (AI) is unable to identify or verify will be marked. It will have the sender's initials or photo replaced with a question mark in the People Card. That will make it easy for any Office 365 user to spot potential phishing or sender spoofing attempts.
In tandem with the Unverified Sender feature, Microsoft is also increasing the size of its s DKIM key from 1024-bit to 2048-bit for all Office 365 customers during the month of October. They are doing this in order to enhance security in all environments.
About this, the company published the following
"If you already have your default or custom domain DKIM enabled in Office 365, it will automatically be upgraded from 1024-bit to 2048-bit at your next DKIM configuration rotation date...This new 2048-bit key takes effect on the RotateOnDate and will send emails with the 1024-bit key in the interim. After four days, you can test again with the 2048-bit key (that is, once the rotation takes effect to the second selector)."
Our perspective
Finally, Microsoft is rolling out a feature they announced in late July of this year (2019), which is their improved Malicious Email Analysis. Collectively, these new features should provide a much safer environment for all Office 365 users. Kudos to Microsoft for that!
Meanwhile, check out this report
This free executive report may give you insights into how to build your business with safe IT environments: 10 Hidden IT Risks That Might Threaten Your Business and 1 Easy Way to Find Them
The author
Thanks for reading this short post. For more tips on thriving with small business technology, check out the other blog posts at DWPia Blogs. I am also available on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.
I am Denis Wilson, President and Principal Consultant for DWP Information Architects. I help professionals grow their business by building a foundation of rock-solid information solutions for smaller healthcare, insurance, financial, legal, and nonprofits firms in Ventura County and San Fernando Valley. And have created cost-effective IT solutions, for over 20 years, specializing in cybersecurity and regulatory compliance. I am also a published author and speaker, working extensively with a variety of organizations, as well as providing small business technology education programs through business and professional associations. This just in: I will be speaking regularly at California Lutheran University's Center for Nonprofit Leadership starting in September.
Contact me if you would like me to speak at your association.
