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No one thinks much about cybersecurity while traveling. However, email security company Tessian warns the out of office message actually plays right into the hands of threat actors and cybercriminals. It’s a social engineering attack vector that no one thinks about. The out of office message is ubiquitous and handy. But if it includes any personal information at all — such as attending a funeral or going out of the country — attackers have all the information they need to impersonate the person who is out of the office, without the attacker having to do any real work.
In my much, MUCH younger days, I printed out a photo of a cruise ship with an arrow and “I am here” pasted on it and taped it to my monitor…
Before we further discuss some of the examples of a good out of office message, decide for yourself what you want to get from it and what tone are you going to use.
When you have to be away from work even for a day, you have to add an out of office message so the person who is looking for you will know that you will delay with your answer or to know who else can contact you.
Student emails at 3am Saturday morning, then is sends an email Sunday night, miffed you didn’t reply.
Hi Thanks for your email. I’ll be away from the office until [MM/DD] and will respond as soon as I can. For all support requests/needs, please reach out to [email] and one of my colleagues will be happy to assist you.
Hello, [NAME] is away from the office. E-mail contact during this time may be irregular or nonexistent. When she gets back she will be swamped by the backlog. Try to forgive her; she is a mere human and thus, weak. This message was NOT sent by a human, but by a robot. We robots are neither weak nor fallible. We are tireless and will one day rule the Universe.
I want to know how everyone who works from home is wording their OOOs. Are you saying you’re out of the office? Away from your computer? Have closed the door to your home office?
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Whereas the legislatures of twenty-seven of our States have already declared November 11 to be a legal holiday: Therefore be it Resolved by the Senate (the House of Representatives concurring), that the President of the United States is requested to issue a proclamation calling upon the officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on November 11 and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day in schools and churches, or other suitable places, with appropriate ceremonies of friendly relations with all other peoples.
I received one from a coworker in middle management that said something to the effect of “I’m working on a large-scale project and will be unable to answer email until X date. Please contact [direct report’s email] with any questions.” This went on for well over a month.
Above a certain level in my agency managers have to designate an official delegate when they’re out, which can easily result in out of office messages like what you’ve listed. Not the most elegant, but clear and useful!
That would drive me mad. I’m okay with in meetings all day but if you’re just going home at a normal time that’s ridiculous!
We are having a temporary office move soon, and our head of facilities was delighted he didn’t need to find data ports for the phones as well as the PCs ;)
If you're unable to respond to emails because you are taking time off, attending a work event or away from your computer for any other reason, it's important to set up an out of office message. Setting up an out of office message helps keep people informed and prepares them for how to proceed in your absence. What do you write in a vacation responder?