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Category: Email

Office 365: Email-retention settings activated June 29

Posted on by Christine Doucette

By Information Technology ServicesOffice 365 logo

Office 365 email-retention settings will be activated on the evening of Friday, June 29. These retention settings govern the automatic management of emails that have been moved to the Deleted Items folder and Junk Email folder.

A couple of things to keep in mind:

  • Items will be automatically removed from your Deleted Items folder after 30 days. You can recover those removed items for up to 14 days after their removal. See the Knowledge Base article on restoring deleted items.
  • Items will be automatically removed from your Junk Email folder after 30 days.

Contact the IT Help Desk, 785-532-7722, if you need help with your email.

If you have questions about the retention policy, contact Greg Dressman, director of Enterprise Server Technologies, dressman@k-state.edu.

LISTSERV policy change goes into effect Oct. 2

Posted on by Christine Doucette

by Information Technology ServicesStop Spam image

Currently, emails from K-State LISTSERV mailing lists bypass Spam check procedures. Beginning Monday, Oct. 2, LISTSERV emails will go through the same Spam check-in Office 365 along with the rest of our university emails. Information Technology Services (ITS) will only bypass emails from the spam checks if a reasonable case can be made for the need. The goal is to reduce K‑State’s exposure to spam and allow the spam protections in Office 365 to do their job.

You should periodically check your Junk Email folder to make sure
you are not losing important, safe emails. After Oct. 2, be sure to

look for messages from your LISTSERV lists in your Junk Email folder. If you find any, fill out this form to request a global settings change that will move those emails from your Junk Email folder into your Inbox folder instead. Requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis for approval.

If you have questions, contact Greg Dressman, director of Enterprise Server Technologies, dressman@ksu.edu.

Change to K-State’s LISTSERV allow list policy

Posted on by Christine Doucette

by Information Technology Services

To help ensure the proper delivery of emails to your K-State Inbox, Information Technology Services (ITS) maintains an Approved or Safe Sender allow list. A allow list is a list of email addresses, domains, and IP addresses that will not be blocked by K-State’s spam filters.

Allow list introduces additional cybersecurity risks. Spammers take advantage of allow lists which makes our K-State inboxes more susceptible to spam, phishing scams, and viruses. Spammers create spoofed emails from allow list email addresses, domains, and IP addresses, which will make their way to your Inbox. When you click on the spoofed emails and links, you will unknowingly expose the K-State network to viruses and harm.

Previously, emails from K-State LISTSERV lists were allow listed. Now, LISTSERV emails will go through the Spam check-in Office 365, and will not be allow listed. ITS will only allow list emails that have a business need. The goal is to reduce K-State’s exposure to spam and allow the spam protections in Office 365 to do their job.

The allow list change will go into effect on Oct. 2. After this date, periodically check your Junk Email folder to make sure you are not losing important, safe emails. If you are losing important emails, fill out this form to request a global settings change that will move those emails into your Inbox instead. Requests will be considered on a case-by-case basis for approval.

If you have questions, contact Greg Dressman, director of Enterprise Server Technologies, dressman@ksu.edu.

What can Office 365 Groups do for you?

Posted on by Charles Appelseth

Office 365 is K-State’s email and calendar platform which includes a suite of apps and features geared toward productivity and collaboration.  Today’s highlighted feature is Office 365 Groups.

Office 365 Groups

Groups are a one-stop shop for collaboration, which bundle some of the Office 365 apps and features.  Apps and features included in Groups at K-State are:

Email 

  • Easily email a group of people without setting up a mailing list such as a listserv or distribution list.  Distribution list functionality is built into the group without requiring any special action.
  • Keep group related email together in the conversation-based group inbox which can be set to also deliver to personal inboxes.

Continue reading “What can Office 365 Groups do for you?” →

Office 365 feature: email safety tips

Posted on by Cathy Rodriguez

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.

    suspicious_safety_tip

  • 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.

    Unknown Safety Tip

  • Green – Trusted safety level messages are from domains identified by Microsoft as being safe.

    Trusted safety tip

  • 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.

    Safe Safety Tip

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.)

Be aware of increase in university phishing scams

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

Since Jan. 1, Information Technology Services reported and blocked more than 2,100 phishing scams. However, before the blocks were in place, nearly 1,000 K-Staters shared their eID passwords.

Remember: You are responsible and the best line of defense to protect your identity, personal information and university resources. K-State will never ask for your eID password over the phone or in an email.

Attention: ITS staff will change the way K-State filters email on Thursday, Oct. 27. Specifically, email coming through k-state.edu or ksu.edu domains will be run through an email filtering process to reduce the amount of spam and phishing scams reaching your inbox. With the number of spam emails and phishing scams coming through to ksu.edu and k-state.edu addresses, we all need to change our practices.

K-State is changing how it filters email. Check your junk folder for legitimate email.

Continue reading “Be aware of increase in university phishing scams” →

Beware of new Locky malware that uses malicious Word macros

Posted on by Rebecca Gould

“Locky” is a new “crypto-ransomware” type of malware that locks up your computer files and requires a monetary payment to unlock them. Locky is delivered via email as an invoice in a Word attachment.

Details from one ransomware email are shown below; this may be one of many variations.

Subject line: ATTN: Invoice J-98223146

Message:  Please see the attached invoice (Microsoft Word Document) and remit payment according to the terms listed at the bottom of the invoice.

If you click on the attachment, you are encouraged to “enable macros”. If you comply and enable macros, malicious code is installed and the malware attack begins. The malware will begin to encrypt your files and attach the “Locky” extension. A ransom note is then left in every directory that has been infected, informing you to make a payment in order to unlock your files.

For specific details about the malware and what it will do to infected systems, see Trend Micro’s article “New Crypto-Ransomware Locky Uses Malicious Word Macros.”

If you receive a ransomware email, do NOT click on the attachment. Send the original email with full Internet headers to abuse@k-state.edu, and delete the email.  How to include full email headers is at k-state.edu/its/security/report/getheaders.html.

Office 365 maintenance scheduled Feb. 13-14

Posted on by Christine Doucette

by Information Technology ServicesMicrosoft Office apps

Information Technology Services will perform scheduled maintenance on Office 365 beginning at 10 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 13, through 10 a.m. Sunday, Feb. 14. Office 365 may not be accessible during this time period, but no email will be lost. Thank you to campus for your patience as we work to maintain our ITS systems. Continue reading “Office 365 maintenance scheduled Feb. 13-14” →

Students leaving K-State CAN keep their email accounts (+ more tips)

Posted on by Betsy Edwards

Students who are graduating or simply leaving K-State for new adventures can keep their K-State email accounts, as well as their email address. Read on for details, including tech tips to manage your K-State email and other IT resources. Also see these:

Tip 1: Students can keep their K-State email address @k-state.edu AND their email accounts. This benefit became available in May 2014. Students must have taken a credit course, and they must keep their eID active by meeting K-State’s password-change deadlines each semester.  Continue reading “Students leaving K-State CAN keep their email accounts (+ more tips)” →