Microsoft Office 365 to Release New Anti-Phishing Feature

With the world becoming more digital and inter-connected with each passing day, the threat posed by cybercriminals has been on the rise; the most notable of these threats is phishing. Phishing is the attempt to gain sensitive information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details, by disguising oneself as a trustworthy entity in an electronic communication.

The drastic rise in phishing attacks this year prompted Microsoft to begin work on developing a new anti-phishing feature for enhanced security on their Microsoft Forms; a web and mobile application that enables users to create surveys, quizzes, and polls designed for collecting feedback and data on the internet. Microsoft forms only recently became available for personal use for anyone with a Microsoft account; previously only being available for Microsoft 365 Personal and Microsoft 365 Family users.

The new anti-phishing feature notifies IT, admins, or users, about their Microsoft Forms that have been detected and blocked for potential phishing. Users would need to sign- in to the Microsoft 365 admin Center at admin.microsoft.com and navigate to the Message Center and look for the notification, Prevent/Fix: Microsoft Forms Detected Potential Phishing.

To review blocked forms, click on the Forms admin review URL link in the notification. You can then either select whether to unblock it or validate its phishing attempt. In a new Microsoft 365 Roadmap entry, a Microsoft spokesperson stated; When managing Microsoft Forms, IT admins now have two options in response to possible phishing: you can either click ' unblock ' or ' confirm phishing ', a new option that is now available. The new Microsoft Forms anti-phishing feature is stated for a release in November 2020.

Reference:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/office-365-will-let-admins-review-microsoft-forms-phishing-attempts/