Self-Reporting Spam and Phishes


Introduction

The most efficient way to report spam and phishes is to use the built-in self-reporting tool. Collaborative Computing Solutions does not white/blacklist individual addresses nor Internet Providers (IPs).

Contents

Instructions

Report Junk or Phishing Emails in Outlook

The Report Message feature allows you to report suspicious messages to Microsoft as well as manage how your Microsoft 365 (M365) email account treats these messages. Messages that your M365 email account marks as junk are automatically moved to the Junk Email folder. However, spammers and phishing attempts are continually evolving. If you receive a junk email in your inbox, you can use the Report Message feature to send the message to M365 to help improve filters. If you find an email in your Junk Email folder that is not spam, you can use the same tool to mark it as a legitimate email, move the message to their Inbox, and report the false positive.

  1. Highlight the message you want to report or while having the message open.
  2. Click Report Message in the Outlook ribbon.
  3. Click the appropriate category for the message, junk or phishing.

This will send a copy of the email to Microsoft 365 (M365). With it, M365 will be able to improve their machine learning, as well as automatically send a copy to the Virginia Tech Mail Team for their own evaluation.

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Report Junk or Phishing Emails in Outlook Web App

  1. Click the message.
  2. Click Report in the main toolbar.

  3. Click the appropriate category for the message.

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Report Junk or Phishing Emails in Gmail

  1. Open the message you want to report.
  2. Click the three dots.
  3. Click either Report Spam or Report Phishing.

    Image of the above instructions

For more detailed information about what phishing is and how to avoid and report these emails, refer to Google’s Help page.

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Correcting an Accidental Spam Report

If an email was incorrectly marked as spam, the following steps will allow you to remove it from the Spam folder.

  1. In Gmail, on the left, click Spam. If Spam is not visible, click More.
  2. Open the email that you want to move out of the Spam folder.
  3. At the top of the page, click Not Spam.
To stop a message from being sent to Spam in the future, you can:

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Phishes Pretending to Be Virginia Tech that Is Inciting Fear or Other Urgent Action

For phishes that are pretending to be a Virginia Tech-affiliated service that is inciting fear or other urgent action (i.e., click this link or you'll lose library access), you should do the following in this order:

  1. Self-report the phish by following the instructions above.
  2. Notify other staff for awareness of the phish through methods such as a Google Group or other mailing list.

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