Changes to University email security from 18 June

From 18 June, the University will transition from our previous email protection, Mimecast, to Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to protect your account from phishing attempts, spam and suspicious emails.

While the platform is changing, the protection of your University email account remains the same. The University's email security measures will continue to help identify and manage suspicious emails before they reach your inbox.

What is changing?

The main change is how suspicious emails are managed. Depending on the type of email, messages may be delivered to your Outlook Junk folder or held for review in the Email Review (Microsoft Quarantine) portal.

If an email is held, you remain in control. You can review the message and choose to release it to your inbox, block the sender or delete the message.

You can also continue to report phishing and junk emails through Outlook using the Report Phishing and Report Junk options. The reporting button in Outlook will still be available but may look slightly different with the new Microsoft Defender experience.

What will Email Review notifications look like?

If an email is held in quarantine, you will still receive a notification from no-reply@newcastle.edu.au but it will look a little different with the Microsoft logo on display. The notification will include details about the email, such as the sender, subject and date.

From this notification, you can:

  • Review the message
  • Release or request the release of the message
  • Block the sender

Selecting one of these options will take you directly to the Email Review (Microsoft Quarantine) portal.

The Email Review portal replaces the previous Mimecast portal. Within Email Review , you can safely preview messages, release or request release of emails, delete messages, and allow or block senders where appropriate.

Need more information?

For step-by-step instructions on using the Email Review portal and reporting phishing emails, please refer to the Knowledge Base article.

If you have any questions or need support please contact the DTS Service Desk by logging a ticket or calling  (02) 4921 7000, 8 am-6 pm, Monday to Friday, during the semester and 8 am-5 pm, Monday to Friday, during semester break.

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