Skip to content

Defender for Office blocks mail from a known sender

Safe Links or Safe Attachments scored it as suspicious. Find out why first, then decide on an exception.

Try this first

  1. 1Open the Defender portal, Email & collaboration, then Explorer. Find the message and drill into detection details.
  2. 2Read the reason: phish confidence, malware detection, or impersonation. An impersonation hit on a legitimate partner happens more often than you think.
  3. 3Ask the sender to verify their SPF, DKIM and DMARC. If those are loose, Defender is right to be suspicious.
  4. 4Only add a Tenant Allow/Block List entry once the cause is clear, not as a reflex. A broad allow undermines the entire filter.

When to bring us in

For repeated false positives from the same partner, the fix usually lives on their end (DNS records). We can mediate or take over Defender policy tuning.

See also

None of the above fits?

Describe your situation below. We pass your input plus the steps you already saw to our AI and return tailored next-step advice. If it's too risky to DIY, we'll say so.

Who are you?

For the AI question we need your email and company, so we can follow up if the AI gets stuck, and to prevent abuse.

Limited to 2 questions per hour and 5 per day, kept lean so the AI stays useful. For more, contacting us directly works better for you and us.

Or skip the DIY entirely

Our Managed IT clients do not look these things up. One point of contact, a fixed monthly price, resolved within working hours.