Office 365 mail filtering

Office 365 provides a robust email filtering system to help protect your organization's email accounts from spam, phishing, and other types of malicious emails. Here are some of the key features and settings related to mail filtering in Office 365:

Default Filtering Settings

When you set up Office 365, the default filtering settings are enabled, which include:

  1. Spam filtering: Office 365 uses a combination of algorithms and machine learning to identify and block spam emails.
  2. Phishing filtering: Office 365 uses a dedicated phishing filter to detect and block emails that are designed to trick users into revealing sensitive information.
  3. Malware filtering: Office 365 scans emails for malware and blocks any attachments or links that are suspected to be malicious.

Customizing Filtering Settings

You can customize the filtering settings for your organization by using the Office 365 admin center. Here are some of the settings you can adjust:

  1. Spam filtering: You can adjust the spam filtering settings to be more or less aggressive, depending on your organization's needs.
  2. Phishing filtering: You can adjust the phishing filtering settings to be more or less aggressive, depending on your organization's needs.
  3. Malware filtering: You can adjust the malware filtering settings to be more or less aggressive, depending on your organization's needs.
  4. Allow or block specific senders: You can allow or block specific senders or domains to ensure that certain emails are not filtered out.
  5. Create custom filters: You can create custom filters to block or allow specific types of emails based on specific criteria, such as keywords, sender domains, or recipient addresses.

Reporting and Analytics

Office 365 provides reporting and analytics tools to help you track the effectiveness of your email filtering settings. You can use these tools to:

  1. View spam and phishing reports: You can view reports on the number of spam and phishing emails that are being blocked or allowed.
  2. Track false positives: You can track the number of false positives, which are emails that are incorrectly flagged as spam or phishing.
  3. Monitor email delivery: You can monitor the delivery of emails to ensure that they are being delivered to the intended recipients.

Best Practices

Here are some best practices to help you get the most out of Office 365's email filtering system:

  1. Regularly review and update your filtering settings: Regularly review and update your filtering settings to ensure that they are effective and not blocking legitimate emails.
  2. Train your users: Train your users to recognize and report suspicious emails to help improve the effectiveness of your email filtering system.
  3. Use multi-factor authentication: Use multi-factor authentication to add an extra layer of security to your email accounts.
  4. Keep your software up to date: Keep your Office 365 software and operating system up to date to ensure that you have the latest security patches and features.

By following these best practices and customizing your email filtering settings, you can help protect your organization's email accounts from spam, phishing, and other types of malicious emails.