Email certificates provide an extra layer of security when sending and receiving email, by allowing you to digitally sign and verify your messages. Recipients of signed messages can easily verify that the sender of the email is legitimate, and that the message has definitely been sent by the person who appears to have sent the email. This provides an easy way of ensuring the email you have received is not a “spoofed” email sent by a cyber attacker in an attempt to phish information out of you.
Below are some examples of how to spot a digitally signed email in various email applications.
Digitally signed email in Outlook 2019 with a rosette symbol
Digitally signed email in Outlook Web Access with a rosette symbol
Digitally signed email in iOS with a blue tick
Digitally signed email in Mac Mail with a grey tick and the word “signed”
You can double-check the signature by opening the signed email and clicking the signature symbol – a dialogue will open with details of the sender and whether the signature is valid. Below is an example of how this would appear in Outlook:
We've had reports of a phishing message making the rounds today which claims that you have an important message waiting. Please be vigilant of such scams/phishing attempts.
As per the guidance at https://help.it.ox.ac.uk/email/phishing/index this message has the tell-tale signs of not being genuine.