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. It provides visibility of the sources sending emails from your domain, ensures better deliverability and most importantly, provides security to ensure that your domain does not fall prey to spoofing, phishing, and impersonation attacks.
To combat email security threats, several protocols were created to authenticate email senders in the past. DMARC, however, established a standard where both sender and receiver agreed to configure their email systems with DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) and SPF (Sender Policy Framework). In a nutshell, SPF allows email senders to determine which IP addresses are allowed to send mail for a distinct domain. DKIM, on the other hand, provides an encryption key and digital signature that confirms if an email message was forged or modified.
Essentially,
DMARC has the following missions:
●
Develop plans to publish
policies on handling authenticated emails
●
Enable receivers to
provide authentication reports for the improvement of their authentication
monitoring infrastructure
●
Develop a formal
standard that can be followed by all organizations and clients
If fraudsters are detected, DMARC tells the receiver’s server to quarantine or reject the communication based on the policies set in place by the domain owners. Moreover, it sends information back to the sending server in an attempt to inform the domain administrators about any suspicious activities.
Before we dive into how DMARC helps protect brands and organizations, we must first understand the parameters associated with DMARC, i.e., SPF and DKIM.
SPF or Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email authentication protocol that allows the owner of a domain to specify which email servers are permitted to send emails from their domain. SPF detects forged sender addresses while the email is still in transit. Messages sent from a company or domain that does not include SPF are more likely to be flagged as spam by the recipient mail servers
DKIM or DomainKeys
Identified Mail is an anti-tamper protocol that ensures security of an email in
transit. DKIM uses digital signatures to check if the email message was truly
sent by the domain it claims to be from. Once the receiver verifies that an
email is signed with a valid DKIM signature, it is clear that the integrity of
the email is preserved.
These two protocols work in alignment with
DMARC to ensure email deliverability and email security. They help companies
and brands protect their data and money by preventing phishing, spoofing, and
email-based cyber attacks of any kind.
Brands that are not DMARC compliant end up
losing huge sums of money and data due to cyberattacks and data breaches. Here
are some statistics that represent the urgency of email security in the modern
world:
·
The average money lost in a data breach is $3.86m (IBM)
·
Phishing accounts for more than 90% of data breaches
worldwide.
·
15% of the individuals who were successfully phished will be
targeted at least once more within the same year.
·
Companies lost over $12 billion owing to BEC scams (FBI).
·
Phishing attempts have grown more than 65% during the
2019-2020 period.
·
76% of businesses reported being a victim of a phishing
attack in 2020 alone.
·
30% of all phishing messages are opened by unsuspecting
victims (Verizon).
These stats present a grim picture of the current scenario of
email security. It shows how vulnerable brands are if they do not follow or
adopt the latest security standards. Fortunately, however, Now that you have
seen how dangerous the cyberworld is let’s dive into the benefits a brand has
when they are DMARC compliant.\
DMARC Benefits for your brand:
Implementing DMARC provides you with the
following benefits:
1.
Brand
Reputation: Using a DMARC record secures your
reputation by forestalling unauthenticated parties from sending messages using
your domain. Your brand integrity is protected as DMARC keeps your domain out
of an attacker’s arsenal of faked email domains.
2.
Email
Visibility: You can acquire reports on email messages
sent on behalf of your domain from all across the internet using the DMARC
reporting system. These reports provide an in-depth look at how your email
domains are being used and how you can optimize your email communications.
3.
Email
Security: DMARC helps you deal with security
threats such as spam, phishing, and spoofing by helping you build a steady
strategy for managing email messages that fail authentication. This makes the
email system safer and more dependable.
4.
Email
Delivery: Even valid emails might sometimes end up
in spam folders, which can be problematic when they contain sensitive medical
information or other important data. DMARC provides additional assurance that
if emails sent by a specific company are authentic, they will be delivered to
your inbox.
It is
imperative that DMARC is adopted by every significant brand and organization to
maximize security and minimize losses. DMARC works as the first line of defense
against fraudulent emails and increases reliability and visibility of domain
owners.
Content
Source:- https://emailauth.mystrikingly.com/blog/parameters-associated-with-dmarc-and-benefits-of-dmarc-for-your-brand