How do I decode a rewritten URL?

As part of providing click-time protection, Proofpoint URL Defense rewrites URLs in messages to point to the URL Defense Redirector service. Rewritten URLs are specially encoded to survive forwarding and other manipulations. This does mean that the embedded URL within the rewritten URL isn't completely transparent.

Proofpoint provides three tools to decode URLs:

• the URL Decoder available on the Tools page within the TAP Dashboard
• the URL Decoder REST API which accepts a list of encoded URLs
• a small Python utility which can be run on the command line