False positives something we all have to deal with – Including Microsoft. At least read this post for its two Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy references!

Our team often get desperate calls from clients, who are expecting an urgent email which they know has been sent, but they have not received it. The support staff usually quickly check the anti-virus, advanced threat protection, the firewall or other barrier/filtering protection (depending on what the client has) to see if a false positive has grabbed the email.

If the email is clean – and they are not always – it will be released to the user. If the email has been stopped for a legitimate reason or (as is often the case) the sender’s system is at fault, we do not leave the client to struggle, as many other support companies do – many work on the principle of “SEP”, somebody else’s problem. We always help the client and the other side get to the solution.

Here is Microsoft’s false positive on a global scale:

Microsoft mistakenly rated Chromium, Electron, as malware • The Register

Getting your filtering right is often a matter of trial and error. We have worked for a solicitor’s firm for many years and just last month one of my team had to tweak the filtering as it was blocking email for a case one of the lawyers was working on. The email had been caught as a result of the automated filter, which we pay a subscription for so the lists are updated as needed by the vendor, and it was one of the new terms included in that list that caught the email. There is a further complication to our management of that firewall and email filter. The material we had to let through for the legal case, was the type of material that was legitimately on the black list of the firewall, so we have to control and document exactly who can access this material, as part of the duty of care of the rest of the solicitor’s team.

One more thought on the false positive

False positives, when they happen can be a stressful – I have them happen to me – and when you are in a rush, or your important email has ended up in you junk mail folder, it is tempting to tweak down your protection, just a little, to stop it happening again.

DON’T PANIC

It is better to deal with a the false positives, than to have your system infected with ransomware or your firewall breached and information stolen – it is much cheaper and far less stressful.

Further Reading

Somebody else’s problem – Wikipedia

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – Wikipedia

Image Credit: Tesla and Space X