To help combat spam, malware, and phishing attacks, Microsoft has implemented a feature called Email Safety Tips.
If a message includes a safety tip, it is displayed at the top of your email. The messages have four color-coded categories:
- Red – Suspicious safety level messages are either a known phishing message, have failed sender authentication, are a suspected spoofing message or have met some other criteria that Microsoft has flagged as fraudulent. Be cautious in reviewing the message. There is a chance that it could be a legitimate email and mismarked. Otherwise delete the email.
- Yellow – Unknown safety level messages are marked as spam. You can click the It’s not spam link in the yellow bar of a junk mail item to move the message to your inbox.
- Green – Trusted safety level messages are from domains identified by Microsoft as being safe.
- Gray – Safe safety level messages are messages not filtered for spam because it is either considered Safe by the user’s organization, is on the user’s safe senders list or Microsoft marked the message as junk but the user moved it out of the junk folder to the inbox. The gray safety bar also appears when images within the message have been disabled.
You will see all four types of Safety Tips when using Outlook on the web. However, Outlook clients will only show the Suspicious saftey tip.
If you have any questions, contact the IT Help Desk (helpdesk@k-state.edu or 532-7722.)