Email is a fantastic way for companies to advertise their brand and gain customers. Email, on the other hand, aids the dissemination of spam, phishing, malware, viruses, and other forms of fraud because it is difficult to say whether the sender is who they claim to be.
A new email authentication standard was adopted by email senders and receivers to help email senders deliver valid emails to recipients while also blocking phishing and fraud messages.
What is DMARC?
DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance. It is an email validation system designed to protect your company’s email domain from being used for email spoofing, phishing scams, and other cybercrimes. Its aim is to prevent email spoofing, phishing scams, and other malware from being sent from the company’s email domain.
SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Defined Mail) are two existing email authentication techniques that DMARC uses (Domain Keys Identified Mail). DMARC introduces a crucial feature: reporting. When a domain owner adds a DMARC record to their DNS record, they’ll be able to see who’s sending an email on their behalf. This data may be used to obtain more specific information about the email channel.
A domain owner can gain control over emails sent on his behalf using this information. DMARC can be used to shield the domains from phishing and spoofing attacks.
Why Does Your Business Need DMARC?
There is no medium with a broader scope than email, which has nearly 5 billion accounts worldwide. As a result, cybercriminals choose this channel for their malicious purposes. Despite the fact that improved security measures have been implemented in recent years to secure this platform, crime continues to rise year after year. 95% of all cyber-attacks and data breaches involve emails.
DMARC adds value in this field. DMARC not only gives you complete visibility into your email channels but also renders phishing attacks noticeable. DMARC is more powerful: DMARC will reduce the impact of phishing and malware attacks, prevent spoofing, protect against brand misuse and scams, and protect business email from being compromised. DMARC Check enables organizations to deploy DMARC and simplify their DMARC setup.
Where Does DMARC Help?
Malicious emails sent on their behalf threaten organizations and their clients; DMARC will stop these attacks. A company may gain insights into their email channel using DMARC. Organizations will focus on deploying and executing a DMARC policy based on the information provided.
Organizations are shielded from the following threats when the DMARC policy is set to p=reject:
- Phishing on customers of the organization
- Brand abuse & scams
- Malware and Ransomware attacks
- Employees from spear phishing and CEOs from fraud
Organizations will gain complete insight into their email channel using ProDMARC. Since companies could historically only learn about phishing attacks after they had already occurred, DMARC’s ability to gain complete visibility into the email channel is a significant benefit. It is possible to gain insight into phishing attacks using DMARC. Customers will be told ahead of time in this manner, resulting in a more positive experience. This way, customers are aware of these attacks in advance.
DMARC in Practice
DMARC’s primary aim is to identify and avoid email spoofing. Phishing scams, for example, use bank domains to send emails on their behalf. Customers of that bank believe they have received a legitimate email informing them that their bank card is no longer valid. The connection you are supposed to click will take you to a fake website. This website is exactly the same as the real website and logging in will provide cybercriminals the possibility of using your credentials.
Originally, email authentication strategies such as DKIM and SPF were used to secure the domains from such scams. Cybercriminals, on the other hand, can get around these safeguards. DMARC will establish a connection between SPF and DKIM in order to completely protect your domain and email channel. When you add DMARC to your DNS record, you gain control over your email channel.
On a regular basis, ISPs can provide Aggregate (RUA) and Forensic (RUF) DMARC reports, which can be sent to the email address mentioned in your DMARC log. Aggregate Reports (RUA) and Forensic DMARC Reports (RUF) are the two forms of DMARC reports available:
Aggregate DMARC reports (RUA) are
- Sent on a daily basis
- Provide an overview of email traffic
- Include all IP addresses that have attempted to transmit email to a receiver using your domain name
Forensic DMARC reports (RUF) are
- Real-time
- Only sent for failures
- Include original message headers
- May include the original message
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC outcomes can all be monitored and analyzed using ProDMARC’s dashboard. Adding a DMARC record to your DNS isn’t enough to keep your domains secure. DMARC works for three different DMARC rules, allowing you to choose what happens to your addresses. The ‘none’ policy is only used to gather data and keep track of your latest email channel.
There are two more DMARC policies to enforce your email channel. The DMARC ‘quarantine‘ policy would send a malicious email to the recipient’s spam folder, while the ‘reject’ policy will not deliver the email at all.
Why is DMARC Important?
To tie all of these, DMARC provides the following benefits to domain owners:
Prevention of fraud emails
You can tell email receivers to reject any email that appears to come from your domain but fails the DMARC check if you use DMARC and ensure all of your valid email sources follow DMARC alignment. DMARC is an anti-phishing control that has been used to prevent massive quantities of email fraud.
Simplified delivery to the recipient’s Inbox
DMARC makes it easy for email recipients to recognize a letter. To combat spam, email recipients devote a significant amount of time, money, and resources to the development of technology that filters out unwanted messages. The DMARC implementation helps email receivers streamline their filtering rules, easily identify and distribute emails. If an email passes DMARC authentication, it means it truly comes from the domain displayed in the From address.
Protection of the domain and brand reputation
You can detect unauthorized senders using your domain by reviewing DMARC reports, and you can tell recipients to reject emails sent from your domain if they fail the DMARC search. This will reduce the number of unsolicited emails from your domain, which will damage your sender’s credibility, brand, and ROI.
Email traffic control
The use of DMARC gives you complete control over your email sources, ensuring that they only deliver valid messages to your subscribers. You can verify whether your valid sending sources pass the SPF and DKIM checks, and you can resolve any authentication problems that arise.
DMARC allows businesses to monitor how their partners send emails on their behalf to ensure that everything is sent correctly. This lowers the chances of your sending IP/domain being blacklisted for sending spam emails.
Easier email visibility and brand recognition
You will use the BIMI standard to show your logo next to your messages in the recipient’s inbox if you use DMARC enforcement. BIMI assists the recipient in recognizing your emails in a crowded inbox and ensuring that the email was sent by you and not by anyone posing as you.
The BIMI standard is currently only endorsed by Yahoo and Gmail’s mailbox provider.
For those concerned about email deliverability, DMARC has become a “must-have.” If your emails are not DMARC compliant, they can compete for a user’s Inbox with spam and fraud emails.
ProDMARC For Protecting Emails
ProDMARC offers user-friendly DMARC services as well as professional guidance to help you get to a reject policy as quickly as possible. ProDMARC is a DMARC email protection and SaaS solution that allows businesses to handle complex DMARC deployments with ease. The solution offers 360-degree visibility and governance across all email channels. Contact us to improve your email authentication services through ProDMARC.