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Reporting Email Abuse at UF

The University of Florida utilizes advanced email filters to block messages of a spam or phishing nature. As the threat landscape changes over time, these filters are continually adjusted to ensure ongoing protection. The spam filters currently automatically reject over 90% of the total messages received by the UF email servers.

Occasionally, spam or phishing messages may not be correctly blocked by these filters. In these cases, please forward these example messages to the pertinent address below, depending on the nature of the message – these reports are used to improve the detection and blocking capabilities of the filters over time.

  • If you have received a phishing message in your UF mailbox (typically messages whereby the sender is attempting to appear to be someone or some group you are familiar with in order to have you divulge a password, account number, or other personal information – sometimes these will contain a link that they want you to click on and other times they will ask you to reply with this information in the email), please forward a full copy of the offending message to abuse@ufl.edu.
  • If you are an external recipient of spam or phishing messages from a University of Florida sender, please contact abuse@ufl.edu.

All reports should include a forwarded full copy of the offending message. It is important to send not just the body of the message but the original full message headers as well. The message headers provide routing information that determine the source of the email and provide the information necessary, in the case of a phishing attack, to block any potential replies to the message.

The easiest way to ensure your report contains the full message headers is to use the Phish Alert button found in UF-managed Outlook clients, including GatorMail (Microsoft 365 Webmail). Instructions for finding Phish Alert are below. If you are using a different email client to access your inbox, select Forward as Attachment or Send as Attachment, and send the message to abuse@ufl.edu.

Finding the Phish Alert Button

GatorMail (Microsoft 365 Webmail) – mail.ufl.edu

  1. Open the offending message.
  2. Click the … located next to the reply and forward options.
  3. Select Phish Alert V2.
  4. In the panel that appears on the right, click the blue Phish Alert button.

Outlook for Windows

  1. Open the offending message.
  2. Click the … located in the ribbon at the top of the screen (not the one next to reply and forward).
  3. Select Phish Alert Report.
  4. In the panel that appears on the right, click the blue Phish Alert button.

Outlook for macOS

  1. Open the offending message.
  2. Click the … that appears above the message.
  3. Select Phish Alert V2.
  4. In the panel that appears on the right, click the blue Phish Alert button.

Finding Message Headers in your Mail Program

When you use Phish Alert or Forward as Attachment, UFIT staff will automatically receive the full headers of the offending message. There is no need to take further action, and you can safely delete the email from your inbox. However, for the curious, here are instructions for finding the full message headers in some of the most common mail programs.

GatorMail (Microsoft 365 Webmail) – mail.ufl.edu

  1. Right click the message you want to see message headers for. Alternatively, you can click the … located next to the reply and forward options.
  2. From the View menu select View message details which should open a new web page showing the full message with headers.

Outlook for Windows

  1. Double click the message you want to view headers for to open it in a new window.
  2. In this new window, click File in the ribbon.
  3. Click the Properties button located in Info.
  4. A new window will appear. At the bottom of this window, message headers are displayed in a box titled Internet Headers.

Outlook for macOS

  1. Right click the message you want to see message headers for.
  2. Click View Source.
  3. The full email, with message headers at the top, will open in a new window.

Mozilla Thunderbird

  1. Select the message you want to see message headers for.
  2. Go to the View menu and select Message Source.
  3. The full headers will be displayed in a new window.

Apple Mail

  1. Select the message you want to see message headers for.
  2. Go to the View menu and select Message and then All Headers.
  3. The full headers will appear in the message panel.