Since the pandemic, cybersecurity has become the most important part of the virtual world. It is high time that businesses and organizations take cybersecurity and email authentication seriously. To secure their money and data, it is crucial that they set up email authentication standards and protocols on their domains. That being said, email authentication can be tricky and complicated.
DMARC (Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is an email authentication standard or protocol that determines whether an email is authentic or not. It relies on SPF and DKIM, two other protocols, to decide the authentication status of an email. DMARC provides visibility of the sources sending emails from an organization’s domain, ensures better email deliverability, and, most importantly, provides security against domain spoofing, phishing, and impersonation attacks.
DMARC Policies
- None policy
It is the simplest DMARC policy. It allows emails that fail the authentication check to go to the recipient’s inbox or other folders. In other words, it allows an organization’s email traffic to continue flowing as it always has. However, with this policy, you can start receiving reports on your domain usage and get familiar with the working of DMARC.
- Quarantine policy
When defining this policy, you essentially tell email senders that messages with failed authentication should be shipped off to the spam or junk folder. It is recommended as the second stage in DMARC’s implementation since it prevents the misuse of your domain for malicious purposes and still permits you to have command over false alerts, which are authentic messages that have been obstructed because of a misconfiguration.
- Reject policy
This policy is considered the final stage in DMARC’s configuration and is recommended only if you have experience with the first two policies. It requires a higher level of maturity from the company so that legitimate emails don’t get marked as false alerts. It completely blocks emails with authentication failures. From a cybersecurity perspective, it is the most efficient DMARC policy that prevents cybercriminals from exploiting your business’s domain
Here’s how you can Authenticate your Email in 3 Easy Steps
1. Consistent Sender Addresses
It is important that organisations remain consistent with the form addresses and the form names they use. Subscribers open a message based on trust, and if the subscriber or customer recognizes the sender easily, the brand becomes trustable, thus reducing the customer’s susceptibility to phishing. Therefore, even the slightest variation of your organisation’s brand domain must not be used.
2. Set Up DKIM, SPF, and DMARC
Organizations and individual users must be up-to-date with the latest email authentication standards and protocols especially DMARC.
DMARC (Domain-Based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is an email authentication standard or protocol that determines whether an email is authentic or not. It relies on SPF and DKIM, two other protocols, to decide the authentication status of the email. Therefore, to set up DMARC, you need SPF and DKIM implemented on your DNS.
When DMARC is configured on an organization’s DNS, they receive regular reports on their domain’s activities. Thus, they can take action if misuse of their domain is detected. DMARC provides visibility of an email’s original source and even ensures better email deliverability. Head to Benefits of DMARC to read more about the added advantages of having a DMARC policy enabled on your DNS.
3. Prepare for BIMI
Email marketers are always on the lookout for distinctive tricks that result in better engagement with their target audience, higher click rates, and increased conversion rates. BIMI can help with this. Brand Indicators for Message Identification is a relatively new standard that allows a brand’s logo to appear alongside their email message in a user’s inbox. Not only does this improve brand visibility, but it also prevents users from clicking on fake emails.
Content source:- Implement DMARC the Right Way to Keep Phishing Attacks Out of Your Inbox