Quarantined Email Message Alerts

Staring in late 2023, St. Thomas updated our email security settings, and a new quarantine feature became available to everyone. You will now receive email alerts when messages sent to your inbox are quarantined. If you receive an email with the subject line "Microsoft 365 Security: You Have Messages in Quarantine," its purpose is to inform you that certain email addresses you marked as spam, or messages that the system has identified as spam or potentially harmful, have been isolated and placed in quarantine for your protection.

Things to Know

• The vast majority of emails that are quarantined are either spam or malicious.
• Most cases require NO ACTION on your part.  Receiving these alerts is NOT a sign your account has been compromised - they are just making you aware of the protections we have in place for all email accounts at the University.  
• Sometimes, however, an email can get incorrectly quarantined.  These alert emails will allow you to review quarantined items and release emails that you are certain are legitimate.

Taking Action

By following the instructions in the email and visiting the quarantine website, you can review, release, or block messages as necessary. The quarantine notification email provides you with options to manage the messages held in quarantine effectively. Here are the actions you can take:

• Review: If you suspect that a message was incorrectly placed in quarantine, you have the option to review it to confirm its legitimacy before taking further action.
• Release: For legitimate emails mistakenly quarantined, you can release them from the quarantine to ensure they reach your inbox as intended.
• Release and Report: If you find a legitimate message flagged as spam or malicious, you can release it and simultaneously report it as not being spam, improving the system's accuracy.
• Block: If you consistently receive unwanted emails from a particular address, you can block future messages from that sender.

Quarantine Messages

The alert emails will appear like the example below, and may contain one or more emails in the quarantined list for your account. 
These emails typically come from the address "quarantine@messaging.microsoft.com."

Reviewing Quarantined Items

Note the Review Message button.  Clicking this button will open up a browser and take you to a page where you can see additional details about the quarantined items.

Releasing Email

You can also select messages on the quarantine list to view additional details about the message.  In the detailed view, you will see an option to Release email (see red arrow in image below). Clicking this option will send the message from quarantine to your Inbox.  Please take great care when releasing emails. If you have any questions or concerns, you can submit a ticket to ITS, and we can review the message for you.