Email Security Gateway FAQ

 

What is email security gateway?

Email security gateway helps to reduce cyber security risks arising from phishing emails (i.e., personal & institutional data leaks, malicious URLs for credentials stealing, virus and ransomware distribution via attachments, and financial loss with business email compromise). It leverages AI and machine learning technology to identify and quarantine spam, phishing or fraudulent email with its global intelligence from worldwide customers and global IP reputation databases.

 

What is Quarantined Email Digest?

Quarantined Email Digest is a summary of suspicious spam/phishing email quarantined by the email security gateway. Quarantined Email Digest is sent daily at 5:30pm with the sender’s address quarantine.email@cityu.edu.hk and subject “Quarantined Email Digest: xx new Messages”. You can review and take the following actions for handling the suspicious email listed in the Quarantined Email Digest:

  • Release – releases the email from the gateway and delivers it to your inbox.
  • Release and Allow Sender – releases the email from the gateway and delivers it to your inbox, and add the sender's address to "Safe Sender List" to avoid future emails from being misclassified.
  • Not Spam – helps to improve the AI engine by letting the platform know that the email is indeed legitimate.
  • Report Phish – helps to improve the AI engine by letting the platform know that the email is a phishing email.
  • Request New End User Digest – sends you an updated Summary Digest since your last digest was sent.
  • Request Safe/Blocked Senders List – sends a full listing of all safe and blocked senders emailed to you.
  • Manage My Account – opens a web page that accesses your account in the email security gateway. You may view quarantined messages, access your safe/blocked senders list, and carry out other quarantined email management functions.
  • For the Score, it places spam on a scale from 1 to 100; the higher the score, the higher the probability that the message is a spam.

 

How to release a quarantined message

In Quarantined Email Digest, you will find the suspicious email quarantined under following table. You can click the "Release" link under the "Action" column to release the email back to your inbox.

email_gateway_release

OR you can click on the email subject link. A browser window will pop up for you to review the email content. You can then click the "Release" button if you want to release it back to your inbox.

email_gateway_release

 

How to add a safe sende

In Quarantined Email Digest, click on the email subject link to review the quarantined email. If you want to add a safe sender, click the "Allow Sender" button to add the sender’s email address to the safe senders list.

email_gateway_safe_sender

OR you can click "Lists" button at the bottom left hand corner, select "Safe Senders List", click the "New" button at the top, input the email address, and click "Save" to save the email address to the safe senders list.

email_gateway_safe_sender

 

How to block a sender

In Quarantined Email Digest, click on the email subject link to review the quarantined email. If you want to block the sender, click the "Block sender" button to add the sender email address to the blocked senders list.

email_gateway_block_sender

OR you can click "Lists" button at the bottom left hand corner, select "Blocked Senders List", click the "New" button at the top, input the email address and click "Save" to save the email address to the blocked senders list.

email_gateway_block_sender

 

Why do links in an external email start with https://urldefense.com/v3/?

The email security gateway enables a "URL Defense" feature to protect you from malicious URLs in external emails. When you receive an external email that contains a URL, the URL will be rewritten with a prefix “https://urldefense.com/v3/”. You can identify the protected links when you hover your mouse cursor on the links. When you click on a link, the URL Defense will evaluate the destination website. If the website is identified as malicious, you will be prompted with a warning web page. If the website is identified as safe, you will be able to access the site.

email_gateway_link

 

When you click on the rewritten URL, the email security gateway will check the destination website against global threat databases. If the website is identified as malicious, a warning message will be prompted as below when you click on that URL. If the website is recognised as safe, you will be able to access it safely.

email_gateway_block_link

IT.ServiceDesk@cityu.edu.hk