SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are essential tools in the fight against phishing, email impersonation, and spam. We’ll try to keep this light on the ‘technical speak’ and only stick to what’s relevant about how these technologies work and why you need them. By implementing these authentication technologies, your business can establish a more secure environment that authenticates your outgoing mail, verifies message integrity, and ultimately – fortifies your email ecosystem against malicious activities and impersonation, all while dramatically improving your mail deliverability to your customers.
These two companies have been leading the charge in email security, by enforcing the established standards we will be describing below. Ever since the stricter standards were implemented in April 2024, Yahoo and Gmail customers have been receiving less spam and therefore, almost no mail that isn’t authenticated against the domain with SPF, DKIM and DMARC. If you’ve noticed that your emails may not be going through to your customers who have Yahoo or Gmail accounts, it’s likely because something is not set up right with your mail authentication.
SPF ensures that only authorized senders can send emails on behalf of a domain. DKIM verifies the integrity of the email content and its source. DMARC brings everything together by defining policies and reporting mechanisms to enforce email authentication and prevent fraudulent activities. These three features collectively help in reducing spam, phishing attacks and email impersonation, thereby enhancing email security for both senders and recipients.
Think of SPF as a security measure that helps verify if an email is sent from an authorized, or allowed source. Imagine you have a secret club, and only certain people are allowed to send messages on behalf of the club. The SPF Record acts as a list of approved senders for your club. This is primarily your company’s email server, but it can also include services such as Mailchimp, your website, or other entities you have allowed to impersonate you. When an email claiming to be from your club arrives at someone else’s inbox, their email system checks the SPF record to see if the sender is on the approved list. If the sender is not authorized, the email may be marked as suspicious or rejected. This helps prevent forged or spoofed emails from reaching their destination, protecting everyone from phishing attempts and spam.
DKIM is very similar to SPF, but it adds another layer of security by ‘digitally signing’ your emails. Imagine you are sending a physical letter, and you have a special tamper-evident stamp with your unique signature. When an email is sent with DKIM, it gets a digital signature attached to it just like the stamp. When the email arrives at its destination, the receiving email system can automatically verify the signature by checking it against the sender’s public key. If the signature matches, it means the email hasn’t been tampered with during transit and that it indeed came from the claimed sender.
DMARC acts as the boss overseeing SPF and DKIM, bringing them together to provide stronger email security. Imagine DMARC as a set of rules and instructions for handling emails. It tells the receiving email system what to do if an email fails SPF or DKIM checks. For example, it can specify whether to reject the email, mark it as spam, or let it pass but with a warning. DMARC also provides a way for the sender’s domain to receive feedback on email authentication failures, enabling them to monitor and take necessary actions to protect their domain from abuse. By implementing DMARC, we would have greater control over your email authentication, better visibility over who is sending email on your behalf, and prevent unauthorized use of your domain.
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