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More protection from phishing emails

12 Jun 2023

A new email filtering service will give us a greater level of protection from phishing emails

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As part of our response to the cyber incident we made some changes to the University email system at the weekend, to give us a greater level of protection from phishing emails.  

What’s changed?  

All University email accounts are now filtered by a new system.  

What do the changes mean?  

  • URL defense: If an email is sent to you from outside the University, and has links included in the body of the email, these links may look a little different. The Proofpoint system amends links to first redirect via its “URL defense” service, to verify that links are legitimate and safe. When you ‘hover over’ a link it will have ‘https://urldefense.com/v3/’ added to the beginning of it. This is routing the link via the Proofpoint system for an extra check.  If at some point in the future, these links are identified as malicious, the person clicking on the link will not be directed to the website.  
  • Suspicious emails may be ‘held’ by Proofpoint and not be delivered to your inbox. This helps protect you from phishing emails but there is a risk in this early stage of implementation that some genuine emails may be prevented from reaching your inbox. If you are expecting an email and don’t think you’ve received it please log a ticket with the IT Support Centre. It will then by assessed by our IT security team and if an email has been held (and is deemed safe) it will be released into your inbox. Please do check your junk mail folder and all areas of your inbox before reporting. 
  • You may see ‘email warning tags’ on emails from untrusted sources. This warning will appear at the top of the email. 

Note that emails received from other staff and student University mailboxes will not be filtered at this time. 

Coming soon 

We are looking to introduce a daily digest email – a summary of all quarantined emails that you’ll be able to release on a self-serve basis where you believe them to be legitimate emails. 

More information