What is GCBS Email Protect?

GCBS Email Protect is an email product that uses sophisticated machine learning and artificial intelligence to analyze incoming messages for signs of phishing, spam, and other email-based threats.

Why am I seeing these banners at the top of my email?

The banners are inserted by GCBS Email Protect to alert you of any possible threats in your emails. The banners also display the email sender’s address and mark if an email is internal (from someone in your organization) or external. If you see these banners, it means that your IT staff has deployed Email Protect and included you in the group of protected users.

What do the different banner colors mean?

A gray banner indicates that GCBS Email Protect did not find anything unusual or suspicious about the message. Even though the message was not classified as threatening, you should always check the displayed sender address and the source type to be sure it makes sense (e.g., an external webmail address for a message from a colleague may be cause for concern).

A yellow banner indicates that Email Protect found something unusual about the email message. It is not necessarily phishing or dangerous, but something you should be aware of. For example, a request for sensitive personal information should be given extra scrutiny. Mail that seems out of the ordinary or is spammy in some way may receive a yellow banner.

A red banner indicates that Email Protect thinks the message is suspicious and likely to be phishing or dangerous in some other way. This includes brand impersonations (e.g., a fake “account alert” email from your IT department), blacklisted phishing URLs, or attempts to spoof mail to look like it came from an internal company account.

What should I do if I receive an email with a yellow banner?

Look carefully at who the mail is from and whether it is from a source you trust. Be especially careful about clicking any links in the body of the email or opening any attachments.

What should I do if I receive an email with a red banner? Why did I receive it if it’s considered dangerous?

In most cases, the mail will still be delivered with the banner telling you to be careful, but you can simply delete the message and move on. The reason these e-mails are still delivered is because it provides a learning opportunity of what you could have looked for to identify a dangerous e-mail.

What does the “Report This Email” link do? How do I provide feedback on GCBS Email Protect’s analysis?

If you think GCBS Email Protect has made a wrong classification, or if you just want to confirm that Email Protect got it correct, click the “Report This Email” link found in the bottom-right corner of each banner.

This will take you to a web form where you can indicate that the message is truly Safe, Spam, or Phishing. You can also provide a comment describing your assessment. This feedback is used to automatically improve Email Protect’s predictions in the future. Your submissions are also manually reviewed to improve the overall system and ensure Email Protect provides the most accurate security possible.

Why do I see a GCBS Email Protect page when I click a link in an email?

Part of GCBS Email Protect is the ability to perform real-time checks on any links you click. If this feature is enabled, clicking on links in a yellow or red banner email will take you to a page reiterating that Email Protect found the message to be unusual or suspicious. In some cases, a message that originally only had a grey banner contains a link that is later detected as a dangerous phishing URL. In that case, when you click the link, Email Protect’s real-time check will detect you clicked on a bad link, and you’ll be met with a blocker page alerting you of that fact.

What should I do if I have questions or comments about the GCBS Email Protect service?

Please contact Grand Canyon Business Solutions at (480) 278-8380. The IT Support team should be able to fine-tune your Email Protect policies and settings to help make things work as smoothly as possible.