Riot sends phishing e-mails. Therefore, without proper configuration, some of these e-mails would not pass Google’s spam filter. This would be unfortunate because it would compromise your campaign statistics.
The following guide explains how to avoid this phenomenon, and how to allow your campaigns to run smoothly.
Did you know? Unlike Riot, hackers would have no problem bypassing your spam filter by exploiting legitimate email servers, which Riot cannot afford to do.
1. Open Google Workspace admin
To allow Riot to work, you will need to add the IP address we use to send our e-mails. Go to Gmail spam, phishing and malware settings on your Google Workspace administration to add it.
2. Whitelist the IP address
The IP address we will use to send our emails is 159.135.234.25. This IP address is dedicated to Riot and won’t be used by any third parties.
In the Email whitelist section, add the IP, and don’t forget to SAVE.
3. Configure the inbound gateway
You will find 2 sections below the Inbound gateway section. Go ahead and open it.
First, start by enabling it by checking the first checkbox. Then, add the IP: 159.135.234.25. You can check the Require TLS checkbox, and you NEED to check the Message is considered spam if… checkbox.
In the Regexp field, enter anything, for example azertyuiopqsdfghjklm.
Finally, check the Disable Gmail spam evaluation checkbox, and click the ADD SETTING button to save.
You will have to save by clicking on the SAVE button.
Careful: if you check by accident the Reject all mail not from gateway IPs, all inbound emails will be rejected.
4. Turn off the grey warning
It’s very likely that the following warning will be displayed by Gmail to your employees in your attacks:
Fortunately, it’s very easy to get rid of those. We send all our emails from the noreply.link domain name, we will have to tell Google that any email from this domain name is legitimate. To do that, first you will have to create a new address list from the Manage address lists settings. Then click on Add address list. It will open the following window:
Configure this window by adding the domain name noreply.link. Then save everything, and close this settings page and reopen the Gmail spam, phishing and malware settings page, we’re going to add this list we just created in both the Spam and Blocked senders sections.
First, in the Spam section, click the Configure button, then a new window appears. Configure it the following way:
And don’t forget to save. Then, in the Blocked senders section, click the Configure button and set it up this way:
Then again don’t forget to save. And in a few minutes, the grey warning will have disappeared.
5. Try it out
Now that you have configured Google Workspace to receive Riot emails, go back to the platform and test the configuration.
Please note: the configuration may take a few minutes to propagate. If everything is well configured and you encounter a problem, wait 10 minutes and try again.
6. I still have the grey warning (optional)
If you still have the grey warning although you followed this guide step-by-step, that’s probably because you have the Enhanced pre-delivery message scanning feature activated. It’s activated by default if you’re not on the basic plan. Unfortunately, disabling it would reduce the protection of your workspace. What you can do though is temporarily deactivate it while you launch your phishing campaign, then reactivate it just right after.
To do that, go to Gmail spam, phishing and malware settings on your Google Workspace administration, and expand the 2nd section. Then, uncheck the checkbox and save. Now, launch your campaign. Wait a few minutes, then reactivate it.
The emails are evaluated by Google only when they are received. That’s why we only need to disable this setting while we launch our campaign.
7. Turn off whitelist alerts (optional)
A new feature on Google Workspace will notify you if your whitelist settings are suspicious.
Those emails tend to be annoying, but they are very easy to turn off. Open the security rule, and click the Edit rule button.
Then click Next again and again to the 3rd step Add actions, and uncheck Send email notifications there.
Then save the edited rule and you should be good to go. You might receive additional email notifications because of Riot, and you can repeat this operation for other rules in the Alert center if you want.
