How can I avoid an exchange service to fall into a restricted entity in Microsoft 365

Question

I have a Microsoft 365 basic account. I am using an email from my account to send notifications and documents as attachments from an app that is located on an EC2 Amazon AWS. The problem I have is that the email account keeps falling under restricted entities; even though I have an MFA activated, have added the range of IP addresses from AWS as valid and use an app password, it repeatedly falls under restricted entities. Is there a way I can set a rule to avoid labelling it as spam and becoming restricted?

Answer 1

Hello, @Ripio Developer,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A platform!

There is not a rule that you can set in Microsoft 365 to tell its anti‐spam systems “never flag these messages.” Rather, it’s about configuring your sending environment so that Microsoft’s systems see your traffic as authenticated, authorized, and legitimate.

Here are several approaches you can consider:

1.Configure Anti-Spam Policies: You can create customized anti-spam policies in the Microsoft Defender portal to ensure that your emails are not marked as spam with the help of Configure spam filter policies - Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Microsoft Learn. This involves setting specific rules for your AWS IP address or the email address used to send notifications.

2.Use Safe Senders List: Add your sending email addresses to the Safe Senders list in Exchange Online according to Configure junk email settings on Exchange Online mailboxes - Microsoft Defender for Office 365 | Microsoft Learn. This can help ensure that emails from these addresses are not marked as spam.

3.Check email content: The content of an email can trigger spam filters. Make sure your email does not contain elements that are usually associated with spam, such as too many links, certain keywords or large attachments.

4.Monitor email sending patterns: Sending a large number of emails in a short period of time may trigger spam filters. Try to spread out your email sending time to avoid this problem.

5.Use a dedicated Exchange Online connector or transactional email service: When you send notifications from AWS EC2 applications using Microsoft 365 email, there are no simple “rules” to bypass spam filters; you need to make sure your messages are authenticated! -- by setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records -- and consider using a dedicated Exchange Online connector or transactional email service so that Microsoft recognizes your email as legitimate and authorized. and authorized.

In summary, rather than a simple “rule” to whitelist outgoing messages, you’ll need to ensure that your sending configuration (through authentication, proper connectors, and volume management) is in line with Microsoft’s best practices. This way, your traffic will look legitimate to Microsoft’s security systems, reducing the risk of being flagged as spam.

Should you need more help on this, you can feel free to post back. 

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Thank you for your support and understanding.

Best Wishes,

Alex Zhang