Teaching Staff How to Use Exchange/Outlook Junk Folder to Identify/Disarm Malicious Email

[Martin Manjak <mmanjak () ALBANY EDU>]

If you are an Exchange/Outlook shop (we are using Live@EDU), and you
offer various information security tips or training to faculty/staff,
you may want to spend some time teaching them how to use their Junk
folder to disarm and analyze suspicious/malicious email.

Moving a message to the Junk folder will disable any embedded links and
render the html as plain text, revealing obfuscated links.

This is a simple and easy way for staff to evaluate suspicious messages
and determine whether or not they are legitimate.

The presence of obfuscated links is usually a very reliable indicator
that the message is bogus or threatening, and when the message is placed
in the Junk folder, these discrepancies are revealed to ordinary users.

It's an extra step, but one that i think employees are willing to take
since it's very straight forward and they can interpret the results on
their own.

Marty
-- 

Martin Manjak
CISSP, GIAC GSEC-G
Information Security Officer
University at Albany
MSC 209 518/437-3813

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