DMARC: A Basic Requirement for Email Domain Security.

 What is DMARC?

DMARC is an email authentication protocol (or standard) that verifies sender identification and confirms the authenticity of email exchanges. It was created to help systems and devices interact more effectively. It adds an "identification check" to all inbound messages to enable senders and receivers to collaborate to build more secure email conversations. Providers and receivers can use DMARC to identify whether an email received from a sender originated from that sender and not a faked address.

DMARC – ONE SOLUTION TO MANY PROBLEMS

DMARC is an e-mail authentication protocol that helps secure an e-mail domain from threat actors that spoof your email domain. Protecting them from cybercriminals is the moment to ruin your email domains against malicious activities by cyber-criminals. It may be extremely harmful to the reputation of your brand. Moreover, your relationships, business reach, and reputation of your organization may be impacted.

DMARC basically monitors two email authentication protocols – Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM). These authentication protocols have 3 basic purposes –

• Ensuring that the sender’s emails are secured by both key authentication standards, SPF and DKIM.
• Sending out orders to receiving mail servers in the situation when neither of the authentication methods passes.
• Giving a path to the receiving server to revert the sender about messages that pass or fail the DMARC assessment.

That's why DMARC implementation is important for your email domain is to be secured. It allows you to save your emails from the sender's spam box. Failure or lack of security for the mail domain might harm the corporation's reach. Your business can increase multiple times with a better email engagement and deliverability rate.

Only 20% of Fortune 500 Firms Employed DMARC in H1 of 2020!

The recent security findings have revealed that 80% of Fortune 500 companies have been vulnerable to email-based attacks. The reason being the slow adoption of DMARC in the H1 of 2020.
According to the security analysis on DMARC adoption trends worldwide, around 20% of organizations adopted DMARC in the first half of 2020. It further revealed that:

• From March to June 2020, there has been a 3000% increase in email-based attacks exploiting the COVID-19 pandemic.

• 66% of these email-based attacks were brand impersonations. 

• These attacks exploited big names like World Health Organization (WHO) and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC).

• On average, 90% of undetected email-based attacks successfully make it to the inboxes of employees. Shockingly, this happens for every verified malicious email that is reported by an employee.

• 31% of US customers were attacked with pandemic-themed phishing emails.

• The year 2020 has seen slower DMARC adoption as compared to the 85% growth in 2019.

WHAT DOES DMARC DO?

The main role of DMARC is to identify and stop spoofing emails. For example, a phishing fraud that incorporates a bank's domain sends e-mails to its clients indicating they have frozen their accounts and asks them to click a link to unfreeze them. Customers can use the embedded link to a fraudulent website if the e-mail is authentic. Customers will be able to access their credentials when they sign in.

SPF and DKIM email authentication techniques were created to protect your domains from such scams. Cybercriminals, on the other hand, have improved their tactics and can now easily bypass these protections. DMARC creates a link between DKIM and SPF to fully secure your email channel and domain. ISPs send forensic (RUF) and aggregate (RUA) DMARC reports to the email address specified in your DMARC record every day once you've implemented DMARC.