We all get sick of seeing email spam. One of the methods spammers use to appear legitimate is called email spoofing. Email spoofing is when the From: address of an email is edited to make the email appear as it if has come from a legitimate company. Thankfully there are ways to protect your business and prevent spammers from using your email domain through SPF, DKIM and DMARC records.
SPF record lists the email servers that are allowed to send emails from your domain. By configuring an SPF record, an email recipient can verify whether the email has come from an authorised server.
DKIM records take this a step further by providing a digital signature for the email. An email is ‘signed’ with a digital signature, and the recipient uses a publicly available key to decrypt the signature. If this decryption fails, the email is treated as potentially spam.
DMARC records define what the recipient should do with an email if the SPF and DKIM checks fail. This can be configured as do nothing, quarantine the email in the junk folder, or reject it outright. You can also configure reports to be sent to an administrator for monitoring.
Both Google and Yahoo! are now requiring anyone who sends bulk email to have DMARC records configured. You can expect other big names to follow suit. If you don't have these records setup, you may find your emails being blocked as potential spam.
If you need help setting these up, or just want to check they are configured correctly – contact us today and we'll ensure your domain is protected.
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