In Outlook and the new Outlook on the web, you can hover your cursor over a sender's name or address in the message list to see their email address, without needing to open the message. However, if you don't recognize a message with a via tag, you should be cautious about interacting with it.

Not every message with a via tag is suspicious. In this example, the sending domain '' is authenticated, but the sender put in the From address. When Outlook detects a difference between the sender's actual address and the address on the From address, it shows the actual sender using the via tag, which will be underlined. Sometimes phishers try to trick you into thinking that the sender is someone other than who they really are. The sender's address is different than what appears in the From addressįrequently, the email address you see in a message is different than what you see in the From address. You can learn more about Spoof Intelligence from Microsoft 365 Advanced Threat Protection and Exchange Online Protection in the Related topics below.

Or, if you recognize a sender that normally doesn't have a '?' in the sender image, but you suddenly start seeing it, that could be a sign the sender is being spoofed. However, you should be careful about interacting with messages that don't authenticate if you don't recognize the sender. Not every message that fails to authenticate is malicious.

When Outlook can't verify the identity of the sender using email authentication techniques, it displays a '?' in the sender photo. Outlook shows indicators when the sender of a message is unverified, and either can't be identified through email authentication protocols or their identity is different from what you see in the From address.

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