What is Proofpoint and What Does It Do?

This article is an overview of the Proofpoint email protection system which is used for all faculty, staff, and student email accounts on campus.

Proofpoint Overview

Proofpoint is an email protection system that blocks spam, phishing, and viruses from reaching your inbox. In addition you can customize your settings to block and un-block specific emails.

Proofpoint will send you an email (as shown in the image below) when it blocks an email to give you the option of releasing messages and/or senders that you do not consider to be spam.

Sample Proofpoint email

Safe URLs

Proofpoint will also locate URLs in your emails and add a prefix that will allow Proofpoint to check the URL before it opens it in your web browser. You won't notice a delay in opening the URL; Proofpoint takes only milliseconds to analyze the URL before allowing you to the site.

In the image below, notice that when hovering over a link in an email, Outlook shows the URL that the link will take you to. Notice that Proofpoint has added a prefix to the URL so it can be checked before sending you to the URL.

Sample Proofpoint email with URL

If Proofpoint deems a URL to be unsafe to access, you will see a message similar to the image below.

Website blocked message

What Do I Need To Do?

You may want to glance at the Proofpoint emails when you receive them to make sure that Proofpoint isn't accidentally blocking an email or sender that you recognize.

Some things that you can do with Proofpoint:

  • Release a specific email from Proofpoint's quarantine
  • Add a sender to the safe sender list for your account
  • Mark an email as not spam
  • Send yourself a new spam protection daily report that lists all of the emails currently in quarantine
  • Send yourself an email with all of the safe and blocked senders that you have added for your account

View the guide on how to manage your Proofpoint settings to find out more.

Need More Help?

Faculty & Staff:

Contact the IT Help Desk at [email protected] or 657-278-7777.

Students:

Contact the Student IT Help Desk at [email protected] or 657-278-8888.