Do you know every source of email for your domain? Are spammers trying to spoof your email domain for hacking or fraud opportunities? Are you complying with the best email practices to ensure inbox delivery? These are the questions that DMARC answers, giving you full control of email delivery for your company’s domain.
Email authentication has been extremely important to us from day one. We believe that anyone should be able to easily send emails with proper infrastructure, tools, and email standards without having to pay enterprise prices. DMARC, and our support of it, is a big part of this mission.
What is DMARC?
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) is a standard that prevents spammers from using your domain to send email without your permission — also known as spoofing. Spammers can forge the “From” address on messages so the spam appears to come from a user in your domain. A good example of this is PayPal spoofing, where a spammer sends a fraudulent email to you pretending to be PayPal in an effort to obtain your account information. DMARC ensures these fraudulent emails get blocked before you even see them in your inbox. In addition, DMARC gives you great visibility and reports into who is sending email on behalf of your domain, ensuring only legitimate email is received.
The good news is that DMARC is open and free for anyone to use, allowing you to secure your domain’s emails and gain control of your email delivery. All you have to do is follow the implementation steps in this guide and choose an ESP who supports DMARC.
Companies using DMARC
What are the benefits of implementing DMARC?
DMARC is a key component of a brand‘s email security and deliverability strategy as it enables:
- Visibility – Monitor emails sent using your domain to ensure they are properly authenticated using SPF and/or DKIM.
- Brand Protection – Block spoofed messages that might damage your brand‘s reputation with customers.
- Security – Prevent users from falling victim to phishing scams that could compromise your organization‘s security.
Will it improve deliverability?
DMARC allows you to see whether emails sent using your domain are properly authenticated using SPF and DKIM. This allows you to identify and fix any authentication issues that can affect the deliverability of your emails.
Preventing spoofed emails from reaching users can lower spam complaints and protect your domain‘s reputation with ISPs.
How does it work?
DKIM is a method to validate the authenticity of email messages. When each email is sent, it is signed using a private key and then validated on the receiving mail server (or ISP) using a public key that is in DNS. This process verifies that the message was not altered during transit. This lets an ISP (Gmail for instance) inspect the message and make a decision if the message is still in the same state as when it was sent. In other words, it prevents someone from intercepting your email, altering it, then sending it along with new (and possibly fraudulent) information. Another little known benefit of DKIM is that ISPs use this information to build a reputation on your domain. If you have great sending practices (low spam, bounces, high engagement) this can help improve trust and reputation with the ISPs.
With DKIM, each email you send is signed with the private key stored on your mail server. Later ISPs can verify the integrity of a message by fetching a corresponding public key from a special DKIM record in your DNS. The cryptography behind this (the same used in SSL) guarantees that only messages signed with your private key will pass the public key check.
This is what the public key might look like in your DNS:
Before you understand the DMARC protocol, you first need to understand two email authentication standards called DKIM and SPF. DMARC is built on top of these standards, so let’s go over them first. If you already know about DKIM and SPF, skip to the DMARC section.
We wrote everything you need to know about DMARC below.
Analyzing DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) reports is important for small businesses, as it offers several benefits:
- Email Deliverability: DMARC helps protect your domain from email spoofing and phishing attacks by providing a mechanism to authenticate emails sent from your domain. Analyzing DMARC reports allows you to monitor the effectiveness of your DMARC implementation and identify any issues that may affect email deliverability. By understanding the data in these reports, you can take corrective actions to ensure your legitimate emails reach the recipients’ inboxes.
- Brand Reputation: Email scams and phishing attempts can harm your brand reputation and erode trust among your customers and partners. Analyzing DMARC reports helps you identify unauthorized or malicious email activity using your domain name. By proactively monitoring and mitigating these issues, you can protect your brand’s reputation and maintain trust with your stakeholders.
- Email Security: DMARC reports provide valuable insights into the sources and types of email threats targeting your domain. Analyzing these reports allows you to detect patterns of malicious activity, such as unauthorized senders, spoofed emails, or domain abuse. This information enables you to strengthen your email security measures, block malicious senders, and take appropriate action to prevent future attacks.
- Compliance and Regulatory Requirements: Depending on your industry, you may have compliance and regulatory requirements related to email security and data protection. Analyzing DMARC reports helps you demonstrate your commitment to implementing proper email authentication measures, which can support compliance efforts and enhance data protection practices.
- Continuous Improvement: DMARC reports provide valuable data on email delivery, authentication failures, and potential issues with your email infrastructure. By regularly analyzing these reports, you can identify areas for improvement, fine-tune your email configuration, and optimize your email deliverability rates. This iterative process allows you to enhance the effectiveness of your email communications and improve the overall performance of your email campaigns.
- Collaboration with Service Providers: Analyzing DMARC reports can help you collaborate with your email service providers (ESPs) or IT teams to address any deliverability or security challenges. By sharing these reports and discussing the findings, you can work together to implement necessary changes, align your email practices with best practices, and ensure optimal email performance.
Even for small businesses, email security and deliverability are critical. Analyzing DMARC reports provides valuable insights into the integrity of your email ecosystem, helps protect your brand reputation, and enhances the overall effectiveness of your email communications. It’s an essential practice to ensure your legitimate emails reach their intended recipients while mitigating email threats and maintaining trust in your brand.
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