Safe Attachments


As part of our cyber and data security improvements, we've introduced 'Safe Attachments', to help protect you from malicious attachments in emails. Safe Attachments is part of Microsoft Advanced Threat Protection (ATP). 

What does Safe Attachments do? 

Safe Attachments checks attachments in an email or Sharepoint, OneDrive or Teams that may be malicious, it will scan and check the attachments and if the attachment is found to be malicious it will remove the attachment.

If the attachment is safe it will allow it to be opened.

What happens once it is scanned?

If, after your attachment has been scanned, it has been found to be unsafe you will see a small text attachment called Malware Alert Text.txt 

Screen of "malware alert text.txt" attachment

This means the attachment has been removed.  

If you disagree with the outcome of the scan and still want to open the attachment, please contact IT and request a review of the attachment.  

IT will be able to check and discuss the safety of the attachment and release it if it is deemed safe. 

How Safe Attachments for SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams works

When Safe Attachments identifies a file as malicious you will see a red shield with a cross. The following image shows an example of a malicious file detected in a library.

List of files with one showing a red shield to the right of the file name

Although the blocked file is still listed in the document library and in web, mobile, or desktop applications, people can't open, copy, move, share or download the file. But they can delete the blocked file.