Don't Believe Everything You Read in Your Inbox!

All EMS ISD employees need to actively watch for spam/phishing messages in your email inbox. Spam comes from senders you do not know, but are designed to look like they come from trustworthy companies. The most recent scams to make the rounds through our district are very realistic-looking, and appear to be emails from UPS, IKEA, and health insurance organizations. Clicking links or downloading attachments from these messages can and will install malware on your computer. Our network administrators are working hard to protect our own network, but it is also important that we all stay aware of threats to our district accounts, personal accounts accessed on district equipment, and personal devices.

How to Recognize Spam or Phishing Messages

• Who is the Sender? Are you expecting a package from UPS? If not, this email is probably not legitimate. Even if the sender name shows a company name, look at the actual email address. If the email address is misspelled or looks odd, it could be spam.
• Spelling and Oddly-Worded Messages. Spam often contains misspellings and oddly-worded sentences. This can include bizarre capitalization and weird punctuation. Many have gibberish at the end of the message.
• Read the message. If the email claims that you are the winner of a contest you didn’t enter, or that you have a package coming that you didn’t order, this is most likely spam. 
• Attachments from unknown senders. If you receive an email with an attachment from someone you do not know, or without any text in the email body, it is likely spam. 

Important Tips When Dealing with Spam

• Never click on links in a spam message. In some cases, clicking will result in you confirming to the spammer that the email address is valid, making you a prime suspect for more spam.
• Do not use the unsubscribe links in spam emails. This will likely NOT unsubscribe you, but actually confirm that this is a valid and monitored email address.
• Do not open attachments in spam. Most of these attachments install malware or viruses on your device and can potentially use your computer to forward spam out to all of your email contacts.

If you have questions about potential spam messages, please contact the Computer Repair Technician or Instructional Technologist for your campus.

Don't Want to Wait for the "Quarantined Emails" Email?

QUESTION FROM TEACHER: I am expecting an email from ?????, and I think it got caught in the Quarantine/Spam Filter. Do I have to wait around until I get that daily email to access it?

ANSWER: No, you don't have to wait!

To find and releases messages caught in the Spam Filter before you receive the daily Quarantine email, go to https://admin.protection.outlook.com/quarantine and sign in with your Office 365 username (full email address) and password.

The management tools at the top of the list will allow you to release an email to your inbox, search for a specific email, or refresh the list.

Email Quarantine Notifications

Many of you may have received an email from quarantine{at}messaging{dot}Microsoft{dot}com this morning. This is a legitimate email from Microsoft’s spam filtering system.

In an effort to cut back on some of the spam we have been receiving, while keeping the settings open enough so that we receive emails from parents, vendors, etc., the Technology Department has enabled a Spam Filtering System from Microsoft for our Office 365 email accounts. In general, suspicious messages will be automatically intercepted and quarantined before they reach your inbox. Messages containing harmful content, such as viruses, will be deleted permanently, while email with potentially untrustworthy content (spam and phishing) will be moved to a safe quarantine space.

These emails will be sent once a day to notify you of possible spam messages that have been quarantined prior to reaching your inbox. Please watch for any legitimate emails from parents or other contacts that may be caught in this system. This notification gives you the following options for managing any suspicious emails:

• To move a quarantined email to your inbox, click the Release to Inbox link
• To classify a sender as trustworthy and move their quarantined email to your inbox, click the Report as Not Junk link
• If a message is actual spam or unwanted junk mail, NO ACTION IS NECESSARY. This message will be automatically deleted in 15 days.

Spam in Windows Live

As our transition to Windows Live is coming very soon we wanted to make sure that you understand that you will notice an increase in the amount of spam that you will receive at the beginning of this transition, however, this will not be the case forever. Windows Live must "learn" what is spam to those of us in EM-S ISD. To help speed up this process we're asking YOU to play a very important part...

1. Don't just ignore the spam that you see in your email.
2. Mark spam as spam by right-clicking on a spam email, then under Junk E-Mail choose Add Sender to Blocked Senders List.