Guide to Keep Microsoft 365 Inbox free from Phishing and Malware Emails

Microsoft 365 offers a comprehensive and convenient email solution for businesses of all sizes. However, as with any online service, it is important to take precautions to protect your account from phishing and malware attacks.

In this guide, we will provide tips on how to keep your Microsoft 365 inbox free from spam and malicious emails.

What is Email Phishing?

Phishing is a type of online scam where attackers send fraudulent emails in an attempt to steal sensitive information such as login credentials or financial information. Phishing attacks can be very sophisticated, and they are often difficult to distinguish from legitimate emails.

To protect yourself from phishing attacks, it is important to be aware of the signs that an email may be fraudulent. These can include:

• The email is not addressed to you by name
• The sender’s address does not match the company or organization they claim to represent
• Email message contains misspellings or grammatical errors
• The email contains unexpected attachments or links

If you receive an email that meets any of the above criteria, do not open it. Instead, delete it immediately. You should also report the email to your IT department or your Microsoft 365 administrator.

How to Keep Microsoft 365 Inbox free from Phishing and Malicious Emails?

There are several steps you can take to protect your Microsoft 365 inbox from phishing and malware attacks. Let us list them:

Use Microsoft’s built-in Phishing Protection

One of the best ways to protect your inbox from phishing attacks is to use Microsoft’s built-in Phishing Protection feature. This feature uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to detect and block phishing emails. The suspicious emails are directly transferred to the quarantine folder.

Microsoft’s built-in Phishing protection comes with the following security features:

• Spoof intelligence insight: It uses advanced machine learning models to analyze emails and provides spoof intelligence insight in the Security & Compliance Center.
• Implicit Email Authentication: It uses Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) authentication to verify that the message is not spoofed.
• Anti-phishing policies and whitelisting capabilities: It provides you with the ability to create anti-phishing policies and whitelist specific email addresses or domains.

To enable Phishing Protection, go to the Microsoft 365 admin center and navigate to Threat management > Policy > Anti-phishing. Then, turn on the toggle for Phishing Protection.

Note: Phishing Protection is only available for Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise editions.

Use a Robust Third-Party Email Protection Solution

Another effective way to protect your inbox from phishing and malware attacks is to use a robust third-party email protection solution. These solutions offer advanced features such as spam filtering, virus scanning, and heuristics-based detection.

One of the advanced security solutions is Hornetsecurity’s 365 Total Protection. It is a comprehensive security solution for businesses using Microsoft 365. It is specifically designed for Microsoft 365 and seamlessly integrates with it to provide comprehensive protection for your data in the cloud. 365 Total Protection is designed to protect your data in the cloud from a variety of threats, including malware, phishing, and data leaks.

Since 365 Total Protection is seamlessly integrated with Microsoft 365, it does not interfere with your productivity or slow down your system.

Your users will be safe and secure with the 365 Total Protection email security solution, which also offers Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), automated email continuity to avoid unexpected downtime, and legally compliant email archiving to preserve all emails.

Additionally, you may choose backup and recovery for endpoints and Microsoft 365 files in mailboxes, Teams, OneDrive, and SharePoint.

Enable Advanced Threat Protection safe links for Office 365

Another way to protect your inbox from phishing and malware attacks is to enable Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) safe links for Office 365. Safe Links is a feature of ATP that protects users from malicious URLs in email messages and Office documents.

When you enable Safe Links, all URLs in email messages and Office documents are scanned by Microsoft before the user clicks them. If the URL is found to be malicious, the user is redirected to a warning page.

Use Exchange Online Protection

Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is a service that helps protect your email from spam, viruses, and malware. It is available to all Office 365 customers.

EOP includes the following features:

• Spam Filtering: EOP uses a variety of techniques to filter spam, including content filtering and sender reputation checks.
• Virus Scanning: EOP scans email attachments for viruses and removes them if found.
• Malware Filtering: EOP uses advanced malware protection techniques to scan emails for malware and remove it if found.

Summing Up

To protect your inbox from phishing and malware attacks, you can use Microsoft’s built-in Phishing Protection, a robust third-party email protection solution such as Hornetsecurity’s 365 Total Protection, or Exchange Online Protection. You can also enable Advanced Threat Protection safe links for Office 365.

By following these tips, you can keep your inbox free from phishing and malware emails.

Peter Brown

Peter is an Electrical Engineer whose primary interest is tinkering with his computer. He is passionate about Windows 10 Platform and enjoys writing tips and tutorials about it.