Dear colleagues,

On September 30, Information Technology Services (ITS) introduced an external email banner notification on all emails originating from outside of the University’s systems.

The goal of this initiative is to mitigate spoofing and impersonation attempts and protect U of T from hacking and phishing attacks. Beginning in March 2020, we consulted extensively across all three campuses and piloted the banner with close to 1,000 users and made adjustments based on that feedback.

This week a number of questions have been raised regarding the length of the banner and its impact on email list preview features. ITS is currently reviewing these questions and possible mitigation. In the meantime, here are some resources to address reported preview issues.

During the pilot, we identified and exempted hundreds of internal senders/systems to ensure that legitimate internal communications would not be affected by the external email banner. Exemption requests can be submitted for specific email sources but not for individual recipients. If you are using on-premises relays or legitimate third-party SaaS apps or newsletter bulk mailers that need to be exempt, please submit a ticket via the Enterprise Service Centre using the following link: https://uoft.me/eeber.

Sincerely,
Information Technology Services