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Top 6 Misconceptions People Have About DMARC

DMARC Email

Many businesses make the mistake of relying on their consumers or staff to detect and report phishing attacks.

This technique, however, is flawed. Around the world, 90% of leading brand domains are targeted by malicious emails. 

The first line of defense against email fraud should be technology that prevents malicious messages before they enter the inbox. That’s exactly what the DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance) standard does.

Many people are confused about what DMARC is and how it prevents domain misuse, impersonation, and fraud. This can lead to major misconceptions about DMARC, how it functions, and why it’s beneficial to you. In that case, how can you be certain your DMARC implementation strategy is correct?

ProDMARC comes to your rescue! To help you understand DMARC better, we’ve compiled this list of the top 6 most common misconceptions people have about DMARC.

What are Common Misconceptions About DMARC?

1. DMARC is the same as a spam filter

This is one of the most common mistakes people make when it comes to DMARC. Incoming email that is sent to your inbox is blocked by spam filters. Suspicious emails can come from anyone’s domain, not just yours. Receiving email servers, on the other hand, are told how to manage outgoing emails sent from your domain by DMARC. Spam filters, such as Microsoft Office 365 ATP, aren’t enough to shield you from such cyberattacks. If your domain is DMARC-enforced and the email fails authentication, the receiving server rejects it.

2. Once you set up DMARC, your email is safe forever

While DMARC is one of the most advanced email authentication protocols available, it isn’t fully self-contained. You should check your DMARC files on a regular basis to ensure that emails from trusted sources are not being rejected. More specifically, you can keep an eye out for unauthorized senders who are exploiting your domain. 

When you see an IP address attempting to spoof your email on a regular basis, you must act quickly to get them blacklisted or taken down.

3. DMARC will reduce my email deliverability

When configuring DMARC, make sure your policy is set to p=none. All of your emails will still be sent, but you will receive DMARC reports indicating whether or not they passed authentication. If you notice that your own emails are failing DMARC during this monitoring time, you may take steps to resolve the issue. Once all your authorized emails are getting validated correctly, you can enforce DMARC with a policy of p=quarantine or p=reject.

4. I don’t need to enforce DMARC (p=none is enough)

DMARC Policy

When you set up DMARC without implementing it (policy of p=none), all emails sent from your domain are delivered, even if they fail DMARC. You’ll receive DMARC reports, but your domain won’t be protected from spoofing attempts. It’s critical to set your policy to p=quarantine or p=reject and implement DMARC after the initial monitoring period.

5. Only big brands need DMARC

Many smaller businesses claim that DMARC security is only needed for the world’s most well-known brands. In fact, cybercriminals can launch a spoofing attack on any business domain. Since many smaller companies lack dedicated cybersecurity teams, attackers find it much easier to target small and medium-sized businesses. Remember, every organization that has a domain name needs DMARC protection!

6. DMARC Reports are easy to read

DMARC Report

Many companies are adopting DMARC and receiving reports in their own email inboxes. The issue is that DMARC files are written in an XML file format, which can be difficult to understand if you aren’t familiar with them. ProDMARC can translate your complicated XML files into easy-to-read reports, but using a dedicated DMARC framework can not only make your setup process much simpler. Using a dedicated DMARC platform can not only make your setup process much easier, but ProDMARC can convert your complex XML files into easy-to-read reports with graphs, charts, and in-depth stats.

Conclusion

ProDMARC is a simple and secure DMARC email protection solution that is designed to address the evolving business needs of companies. By blocking phishing attempts, notifying you about them as soon as possible, and getting those false positives to zero, we provide 100 percent DMARC protection. As a result, the company’s productivity and deliverability will improve. Get Started with top-class cybersecurity solutions for your business at ProGIST.

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How can DMARC prevent the misuse of your domain?

The ability to create fake emails has long been used by cybercriminals as a tool for the deployment of spam, phishing attacks, or malware, and has been so since email was invented. DMARC is an easy way to give an email recipient the opportunity to verify an email’s validity with additional security that makes it easier to recognize.

It is understood that cybercriminals copy well-known brands and use the trusted reputation of the brand to send emails to recipients and orchestrate an impostor. The offenders end up giving away confidential data such as credit card pins, passwords or even end up making payments to the impostors.

What is DMARC?

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is an email protection service that enables the identification and prevention of email spoofing. The aim of DMARC is to wage war on email phishing scams, where the address of the sender has been forged to look as if it came from a legitimate organization.

How does DMARC protect your domain emails?

For an organization that sends emails to its customers, DMARC guarantees that valid emails are authenticated and the identity of the sender is checked by the email service provider of the recipients. Fraudulent emails that tend to be originating from domains under the jurisdiction of the company are blocked. In its DMARC policy, the organization can also include domains that do not send emails or even defensively registered domains.

Inbound emails that fail DMARC authentication do not enter the inbox of the recipient, so phishing emails are filtered out. So, if you get an Income Tax Department email with a “From” address with intimations@cpc.gov.in, did cpc.gov.in really approve the message?

DMARC is built on two existing and widely deployed email authentication techniques, the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM).

SPF- enables domain owners to approve hosts who can use the “MAIL FROM” or “HELLO” identifier with their domain name. A list of hosts that are permitted to use a specific domain name is published as a specially formatted TXT record in the Domain Name System (DNS) records of that domain.

DKIM– allows a digital signature for a domain owner tag and email message. Email authentication is performed using the public key of the signer, which is published in the DNS. A valid signature ensures that, since the signature was attached, at least some parts of the email have not been changed.

While SPF and DKIM helped identify fake emails, neither of these protocols included a way to report what and why messages were denied. DMARC addresses this issue by enabling domain owners to tag sent messages to prove validity with certain domain identifiers.

It provides instructions for receiving email servers on how to deal with messages that fail authentication tests for SPF and DKIM; and also provides a reporting system to convey what activities were taken under the policies.

Benefits of DMARC

What separates DMARC from other protocols for email authentication is its reporting feature. You can see who sends emails on behalf of your domain, your brand, with DMARC, and stop spammers from using it to send fake emails.

DMARC’s reporting function means that receivers activated by DMARC can tell you:

  • How many messages they’ve received using your domains in the From address
  • Where the messages come from
  • If they passed DKIM and SPF tests on these messages

Other advantages:

  • Before DMARC, receiving email servers did their best to decide whether or not the email was legitimate. It was never perfect and users had to search for lost emails in spam folders.
  • DMARC offers visibility dealing with messages that fail to authenticate.
  • By preventing unauthorized hosts from sending mail on your domain’s behalf, publishing a DMARC record protects your brand.
  • Valid emails are easily recognized after setting up your DMARC Record. This means you can advise all recipients to reject emails from anyone who imitates your business. This was DMARC’s original goal-to stop domain harassment.
  • DMARC reports give you an insight into who is sending mail from your domain.

It is easier to decide that the messages are not bad for inbox providers. Such emails are more likely to be sent easily and without errors to the recipient’s mail. Setting up a DMARC policy and finding the best service provider to deliver your emails would only help improve the credibility of your company.

Conclusion

We at ProGIST suggest getting a well-implemented DMARC setup to avoid emails reaching end-users who spoof your domain. This is a highly successful way to avoid the sending of both general phishing emails to your customers and spear phishing emails to your employees.

ProDMARC hand holds you during the entire life cycle of implementing DMARC including domains that do not send emails or even defensively registered domains. We study your outbound email traffic trend including marketing communications sent by third-party email campaign tools, by configuring SPF and DKIM records in your DNS for all your domains and configuring the DMARC record in your DNS with the right policies from the “monitoring” to “blocking” modes. Contact our experts for advanced cyber security solutions for your business.