How do Shield protection levels affect message delivery?

Shield protection levels are used to determine which [risk levels](https://support.mailprotector.com/hc/en-us/articles/25910719455252-Adjust-Risk-Levels) --low, moderate, or high-- will impact a user's message delivery. Protection Levels will dramatically adjust how Shield handles emails for the destination mailbox.

Protection Levels

Mailprotector's Shield protection levels—configurable per user by an admin—determine how low, moderate, and high-risk emails are filtered and delivered, with four levels ranging from Passthrough Mode (no filtering) to Maximum Protection (strictest filtering with dynamic risk elevation), where Maximum Protection is the default for licensed users and Minimum Protection (filtering only high-risk messages) is the default for shared mailboxes.

Description

Shield protection levels are used to determine which risk levels --low, moderate, or high-- will impact a user's message delivery. Protection Levels will dramatically adjust how Shield handles emails for the destination mailbox.

Protection Levels

Protection levels are customizable per user by a Shield Admin. The setting is available by clicking View Users in the Shield organization, clicking the user, clicking Configure Preferences, and scrolling to Control Settings.

Shield Protection Levels.png Shield Protection Levels determine how risk levels affect message delivery. Protection levels for mailboxes work as follows:

Maximum Protection: Everything in Balanced, plus dynamic risk elevation for the strictest filtering. This is the default protection level for all licensed users.
Balanced Protection: Zero-trust filtering across every threat signal.
Minimum Protection: Only high-risk messages are filtered. This is the default protection level for shared mailboxes.
Passthrough Mode : No filtering is performed.

By default, licensed users are set to Maximum protection while shared mailboxes are set to Minimum protection.

Risk Level Differences Between Licensed Users and Shared Mailboxes

Relevant enabled workflows may affect the location and/or designation of individual messages.

Licensed Users

Trust decisions factor into the behavior of risk levels.

High: emails are held in Shield's Jail, outside the mailbox, even if a sender is trusted.
Moderate: emails are sent to the Junk folder even if a sender is trusted.
Low: emails are sent to the Junk folder if the sender is not trusted.
None: emails are delivered or silenced. If the sender does not have a trust or silence clearance, the email will contain the New Sender banner so that a trust decision can be made.

Shared Mailboxes

Trust decisions do not factor into the behavior of risk levels.

High: emails are held in Shield's Jail, outside the mailbox.
Moderate: emails are sent to the Junk folder.
Low: emails are sent to the Junk folder because the contact's trust network decision is not considered in the delivery decision.
None: emails are delivered to the Inbox.