SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are three techniques used in modern email authentication. These techniques verify that a message was sent by the sender specified in the from header.
Email senders can protect their brand and subscribers' personal data by using DMARC to prevent spoofed spam and phishing emails from reaching their email subscribers and customers.
This Blog covers the fundamentals of SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, as well as how to properly deploy DMARC and read DMARC reports.
What is Email Spoofing?
Sending an email with a fake email address is known as email spoofing. The sender forges an email header to make the recipient believe the letter came from a different source than it really did, with the goal of getting the recipient to open or re-send the email to someone else.
The common reasons for spoofing are:
- Hiding the real name of a sender;
- Avoiding blacklisting;
- Identity theft;
- Impersonating someone who the recipient knows;
- Impersonating a business that the recipient works with.
Because SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) does not provide email authentication in today's world, spoofing is possible. However, there are protocols in order to protect emails from malicious activity.
So, how to prevent email from spoofing?
In order to protect oneself, all incoming messages should be authenticated properly. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are three most globally used protocols which help achieve this goal.
The DMARC protocol (Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) ensures that an email was received from a specific sender. Phishing, spoofing, and other malicious activity are no longer a possibility. DMARC also improves delivery rates by controlling the delivery process and ensuring that emails are sent to the inbox of the intended recipient instead of the spam folder.
DMARC is built on the two widely used protocols SPF and DKIM.
DMARC Policy
DMARC requires email domain owners to add a policy (p=) tag in their DMARC record. This policy tells email receivers how they should treat an email that appears to come from the domain in the from header, but does not pass DMARC alignment.
There are three DMARC policies:
- None: no action will be taken regarding the delivery of messages. This policy is used for monitoring and collecting data about email authentication of the messages sent from a domain.
- Quarantine: an email that fails the DMARC check will be treated by email receivers as suspicious. Depending on the email receiver, this can mean “send to spam folder”, “subject to thorough filtering”, and/or “flag as suspicious”.
- Reject: an email that fails the DMARC check will be rejected during the SMTP transaction.
EmailAuth Suite is one of the world's best platform for Email Authentication and has been serving customers since the introduction of DMARC in 2012.
EmailAuth has been termed as the "Simplest" dashboard by Security Professionals and is also vastly appreciated by other industry experts.
Our ability to convert complicated DMARC reports into plain English is what makes us one of the leading providers globally.
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a directory service where human-friendly computer hostnames are associated with IP addresses.
We have published the Dmarc standard in RFC 7490 to provide a confidential reporting mechanism for domain names (domain name system records) deployed via the DNS protocol.
This document defines the exact syntax of a Dmarc report to ensure interoperability between different implementations of this standard.
It is designed to help small business owners understand how their accounts are performing so that they can make informed decisions about how to improve their cash flow and increase profitability.
The unique design of Dmarc Reports makes it easy for anyone to analyze the performance of their bank accounts in real-time.
How is Dmarc different from other financial reports?Dmarc records are sent from domain owners to email providers to notify them of specific domain name registrations (or transfers), and are used primarily as defense mechanisms against certain types of email abuse.
The reason why you should study Current Affairs in the right way is because it and GK is clearly a very competitive field with many students and courses to study for.
That's why I've put together a list of ‘must have' resources for you should you wish to succeed on your exams and study hard for your future competitive shot at the top universities, corporations and corporate organizations.
This article aims to help you pick the best strategy for you to follow for studying for your competitive exams.It's also important to understand how the syllabus for your competitive exams works in order to evaluate what works best for you.
These are some key points you need to consider when preparing for competitive exams.
The biggest mistake that students make is to believe that once they study hard and practice good habits they will automatically be better prepared for exams.
The best way to prepare for exams is to learn as much as you can about the subject you're studying, but also keep working on other parts of your study program.
