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Most email scams begin with messages from an external email system. As part of Rhode Island College’s effort to reduce phishing and other email scams, these external email messages will now receive an [External] tag in the message subject as well as a warning message at the very end of the email. Below are examples of the warnings to be added beginning Monday, March 13, 2023.
Example of the new subject line:
Internal Email Subject Example:
Subject: Meeting today at 2pm
External Email Subject Example:
Subject: [External] Meeting today at 2pm
The screen shots below illustrate how the [External] tag will look in Outlook mail applications when they arrive in your inbox:
Outlook 2019 for Windows:
Outlook for Mac ("New Outlook" mode)
Outlook on the Web:
Outlook Mobile
Example of the new warning that will be added to the end of external email messages:
WARNING: This email originated from outside of Rhode Island College.
Use caution when opening attachments, clicking links or responding to requests for information.
This new feature will make you aware of email originating outside of RIC and will help you to protect your account from being compromised. This, in turn, protects the college from threat actors and cyber criminals who may gain access to college systems and confidential information through a compromised account.
Please bear with us as we expect a bit of over-tagging to occur. We will continue fine-tuning to remove the [External] tag, as appropriate. Some RIC e-mail notifications are sent through third party e-mail services that may get flagged as [External]. Also you may receive notifications from official services the college subscribes to that do not come from a ric.edu address (ie, Microsoft 365 SharePoint, PeopleAdmin, etc) that may also get flagged. If you have any general questions regarding the legitimacy of an e-mail you receive, please contact the ITS Help Center (helpdesk@ric.edu or 401-456-8803).