Issue/Question
- Can I opt out of the external email warnings that show "This email originated from outside of OSU."?
Environment
- Oregon State University
- Exchange Email
Cause/Explanation
In Summer 2020, OSU enabled an email feature to do the following on all messages coming from outside of OSU email systems:
- Prepend the following to the message body: "[This email originated from outside of OSU. Use caution with links and attachments.]"
This warning was added to help prevent account compromises. Account compromise is still a serious issue for OSU. Compromised accounts are often used to send spam email, damaging the reputation of OSU email with other sites. The value of this warning would be diminished if the warning was placed anywhere but the beginning of the message. Requests to move the warning to the end of the message will not be approved.
Please note that a message may be sent from an "official" OSU source but still be external. Examples include automated messages from cloud-hosted services such as EmpCenter. Some of these allowed senders will be exempted from the external warning messages.
Resolution
At this time there is no opt-out process for external warning messages.
Some customers have reported that the warning message causes issues when previewing email items in Outlook. The following adjustments may help address this issue:
- In Outlook, select the View menu
- Select Current View, Message Preview, and select "3 Lines"
- Choose whether to apply this setting to the current folder or the entire mailbox
- Preview will now show more of the message content
Assistance
For assistance, contact the Service Desk.