It is a scary world out there, with attackers trying to reform their malicious tactics every single day. There are thousands of fraudsters out there looking to trick ignorant users into making a quick buck. Hence, information security is no joke in 2021! The majority of business communications in this digital world take place via emails. It is an important communication tool that not only allows organizations to exchange information with their clients and partners, it also enables interdepartmental communication between different departments within an enterprise.

To protect your email information from being intercepted by cybercriminals, or block the use of your email domain for malicious purposes, Email Authentication is the industry-recommended solution! What’s even better is that there are several types of email authentication protocols that you can configure for your domain and emails to provide all-around protection against attacks. Let’s discuss what they are: 

 

SPF and DKIM

SPF is an easy-to-use and standard email authentication technique that sends a DNS TXT record to verify the authenticity of the source of an email. It was designed to work with SMTP, the basic protocol used to send emails, and also includes records for DNS lookup. Most mailbox providers have SPF enabled by default for outgoing emails, making it the most commonly configured authentication technique in the industry. 

However, to ensure that SPF stays valid for your domain, you need to prevent too many DNS lookups with the help of an automatically flattened SPF DNS record. This will also help you get rid of the no SPF record found message. 

DKIM on the other hand is an email authentication system that allows an organization to sign messages with a digital signature. Although the technology behind it is very different from that of SPF, they share one common goal, which is to verify the legitimacy of email messages. DKIM especially comes in handy during instances of forwarded email messages and the use of mailing lists, where SPF generally fails. This ensures that forwarded messages reach their destination safely without being rejected or marked as spam. 

Domain Alignment with DMARC

A popular myth among domain owners is that SPF and DKIM alone are enough to protect their organization from business email compromise and spoofing. However, that is far from reality. DMARC is an email authentication solution that checks for domain alignment between the SPF, DKIM, and From header to classify emails as fraudulent and legitimate. When DMARC authentication fails, domain owners also have the authority to specify instructions on how their recipients’ email server should treat non-compliant emails. 

Configuring a DMARC analyzer helps you set up your domain with DMARC reject, which is the only policy mode that can effectively put an end to BEC attacks and direct-domain spoofing. A majority of users have claimed to have witnessed a steady rise in their email deliverability rates after adopting DMARC. 

 

MTA-STS and TLS-RPT 

Another way cybercriminals can jeopardize the safety of your information is by intercepting your email communications. Attackers often hijack SMTP server communications to gain access to the message content through DNS spoofing or MITM attacks, which DMARC, SPF, or DKIM cannot stop. MTA-STS makes TLS encryption mandatory for SMTP that helps to minimize the risk of cyber eavesdropping. 

In addition to configuring MTA-STS, SMTP TLS reports help domain owners track and monitor email delivery issues that may take place when communicating servers fail to establish a secure connection.

 

How can I manage my email authentication protocols easily? 

Hosted authentication services help you manage your protocols and modify DNS records easily without having to access your DNS again and again. It simplifies the onboarding process and helps domain owners leverage these complex standards to their fullest potential. 

By signing up for your DMARC report analyzer, you not only gain access to your personalized dashboard with all the DMARC data for your domains and subdomains available at your fingertips; you can also track down and report malicious sources faster. It helps you gain better insight into your email channels and the overall DMARC-compliance of your domains. 

Give your organization the boost of email authentication, and make your emails safe again!