Cyber Security Newsletter - February 2024: What You Should Know About Outlook's Security Features

Most of the Laurier community is familiar with Microsoft Outlook for its email and scheduling features, but what about Outlook’s security features?

Beyond the built-in spam filtering and malware protection, the Outlook app itself also has several security features that can be customized for your needs.

The setting names below mainly reference the classic version of Outlook. These setting names may differ if you are using the new version of Outlook for Windows, Outlook for Mac, Outlook on the web, or Outlook's mobile apps.

Junk Mail Settings

Block Senders

What does it do? Allows you to send all messages from a sender to your Junk Mail folder. 
How do I use it? Send all messages from a sender to your Junk Mail folder by right-clicking on one of their messages in your Inbox, hover over 'Junk' (or 'Block' in the new version of Outlook for Windows), then select 'Block Sender'.

Safe Senders

What does it do? Ensures that emails from certain recipients will always be sent to your Inbox and not your Junk Mail folder.
How do I use it? Add a contact to your Safe Senders list by right-clicking on the message, hover over 'Junk', then select 'Never Block Sender'.

Junk Mail Options

What does it do? Allows you to set your desired level of Junk Mail filtering.
How do I use it? Right-click on a message, hover over 'Junk', then select 'Junk Email Options'. This will open a pop-up window allowing you to choose several different levels of automatic filtering, or you can turn the feature off altogether to send all messages to your Inbox unless the sender is specifically blocked in Outlook.

Mail Rules

Email rules

What does it do? Can be used to mark messages as confidential or delete older messages for security and privacy. 
How do I use it? 

• Create and edit rules – start from scratch or use one of the pre-defined templates by selecting the File button at the top-left corner of the main Outlook window, then selecting 'Manage Rules and Alerts' (or select the Settings gear icon in the top-right corner of the window in the new version of Outlook for Windows).
• Mark messages as confidential – Incoming messages can often be marked by senders as 'confidential' within Outlook’s message properties window or in the message’s subject line. If you regularly receive confidential messages, you can create a rule to sort them into a separate sub-folder to ensure they aren’t visible to others walking by your device or when you are sharing your screen.
• Create 'Sweep' rules – Sweep rules can automatically move or delete emails older than a specified number of days; they can also move or delete everything except the latest message from a particular sender. Using this feature periodically can lessen the impact of disclosing private data if someone were to gain access to your email account.
  • Please note that sweep rules are meant to act as a precaution to remove existing private data from your inbox and should not be used for ongoing removal of private data sent through email. Emails removed by sweep rules will still be accessible to ICT.

Trust Center 

What does it do? The Trust Center allows you to adjust security and privacy settings for Microsoft Office programs.
How do I use it? You can find the Microsoft Trust Center settings under Outlook’s Options menu.

• You can use it to configure a variety of controls – for example, the 'Automatic Download' setting can be set to prevent Outlook from displaying images automatically (downloading an embedded image can let a spammer know you’ve read their message).
• You can also set Outlook to only download and show images when the sender is added to your Safe Senders list.
• The Trust Center can also be used to disable Office macros, which are scripts intended to perform automatic actions in Outlook but are often abused by cybercriminals.

First Contact Safety Tip

You may have noticed the 'You don’t often get email from this sender' banner appearing in Outlook’s Reading Pane when opening messages from your less frequent email contacts recently:

This banner is known as a 'first contact safety tip'. It should disappear automatically once you reply to the sender or receive additional messages from them.

If you see this banner, take extra care to ensure that the message attached is not a phishing attempt. Forward any suspicious messages to reportspam@wlu.ca if you’re in doubt about whether a message is legitimate. 

This feature also helps detect impersonation attempts like reply-chain phishing attacks, where a cybercriminal may use parts of old email conversations gathered from the mailboxes of your trusted contacts to trick you into thinking a message is coming from that person.

We encourage you to take advantage of the security features available in Outlook and to stay cyber safe!