Protecting Against Junk and Malicious Emails In Microsoft Outlook


In today’s world, you must address the problem of junk email (often called spam) and security threats that can arrive in your Inbox folder. No matter how careful you are, your Inbox folder will get some email that can cause problems, or at the very least, that fills your Inbox with junk that wastes your time to delete.

Here are the rules of thumb for protecting yourself against junk email and email based security threats:

1. Don’t open attachments from senders you don’t know or trust.

2. Even when you’re sent an email from someone you know and trust, use caution.

Look at the email’s subject and text within its body to get a sense as to whether it truly was sent by your friend. Some email threats take over a user’s Inbox and send malicious emails to everyone in the user’s Inbox without the user’s knowledge.

3. It’s worth repeating: Install antivirus software and keep it up-to-date.

4. Use Outlook’s Junk Email filters.

5. Don’t click links inside suspicious emails.

Don’t be fooled by phishing scams. Emailers of such scams are getting wiser and sending more official-looking emails. Fortunately, many of them still give themselves away with bad grammar and spelling, but that will change. An email from a company you do business with will almost always address you by name to show that it’s real and will never ask for your password. If you are unsure whether an email is actually from your bank or some website you do business with, don’t click the email’s link. Instead, open your Internet browser and log in to the site by first typing the real web address yourself.

Some email problems can arrive embedded in graphics images inside an email message body. By default, Outlook does not display graphics images in your email Reading pane. Instead, Outlook displays an icon; you can right-click the icon and select Download Pictures from the pop-up menu to see the image. Also, a message appears toward the top of the email that you can click to download the images.



Outlook generally hides graphics images until you request their display.


If you right-click an email message in your Inbox, select Junk E-mail, and select either Add Sender to Safe Senders List or Add Sender’s Domain (@sample.com) to Safe Senders List, Outlook will not block subsequent messages you receive from that sender or from that sender’s domain. Never request that Outlook allow email from a generic domain such as AOL.com to come through your system. For emails from friends, family, and associates who have email addresses with the large firms such as AOL.com, add the sender’s email but not the domain to your safe senders list.

Review Outlook’s junk email options regularly. Select Actions, Junk E-mail, Junk E-mail Options to display the Junk E-mail Options dialog box. Adjust your settings to suit your particular situation. For example, you can request that Outlook perform no automatic filtering of junk email, but if you do, Outlook will not monitor your email for known junk mail and your Inbox folder will fill with everything. If you select Low, Outlook moves only what it is certain is junk email to your Junk E-mail folder. A High setting catches most junk email but will also send some valid email that Outlook incorrectly identifies as junk to your Junk E-mail folder.

Anytime you set Outlook’s junk email filter to a setting more severe than No Automatic Filtering, you should check your Junk E-mail folder every day or two to make sure that no valid email ends up there. If you find a valid email in your Junk E-mail folder, right-click that message and add the sender to your safe senders list.

The Junk E-mail Options dialog box also includes other settings that help you control the amount of junk email you receive.



Control the amount of junk mail you receive from within your Junk E-mail Options dialog box.