{"id":22782,"date":"2024-08-08T08:28:13","date_gmt":"2024-08-08T08:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c1mdev.com\/c1m.ai\/?p=22782"},"modified":"2024-08-26T06:40:06","modified_gmt":"2024-08-26T06:40:06","slug":"dmarc-for-email-security","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c1mdev.com\/c1m.ai\/dmarc-for-email-security\/","title":{"rendered":"DMARC: The Essential Shield for Email Security"},"content":{"rendered":"

Your emails are at the frontlines of potential cyberattacks. According to <\/span>2024 research<\/span><\/a>, an estimated 3.4 billion phishing emails are sent out around the world every single day, and 25% of emails from recognized brands contain phishing emails.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

For B2B businesses and B2C businesses alike, email security is not only important, but essential, as a lone rogue email in the <\/span>121 emails<\/span><\/a> the average person receives daily can have devastating and cascading consequences.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Consider the now infamous <\/span>Google and Facebook phishing scheme<\/span><\/a> of the mid-2010s, which is still known as the costliest phishing scheme in history.\u00a0 For two years, a Lithuanian man was able to steal more than $100 million from the two tech-savvy giants by sending convincing invoices to various personnel through fake email accounts.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Protecting your email accounts effectively protects your company, customers, and partners, and a breach in your email security spiderwebs to everyone you do business with.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This is why DMARC plays a crucial role in your organization\u2019s security and why identifying and launching DMARC implementation strategies should be a top priority for your company.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What is DMARC, and why is it important?<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h2>\n

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance. It is a technical standard for email authentication, policy, and reporting protocol. This helps protect email senders and recipients from advanced threats.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In its simplest terms, DMARC email security provides a way for email domain owners to dictate their authentication practices and to specify the actions that will be taken when an email fails these authentication steps.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DMARC accomplishes this through two foundational authentication methods: SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). SPF looks at the source and verifies the sender\u2019s IP address, while DKIM ensures that message content, including all headers, links, and the email body, has not been tampered with.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

From there, DMARC takes these security measures a step further by ensuring that the data SPF and DKIM have verified also aligns with the domain stated in the email \u201cFrom\u201d field, which adds an extra layer of protection. Based on the DMARC policy that is determined by the sender ahead of time, the receiving server can then use this verification data to determine if the email should be accepted, declined, or quarantined if any of these verification checks fail.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps most importantly, when there is an issue, it is reported back to the sender about messages that have either passed or failed the DMARC evaluation process, so there is a full accounting of all email activity on the sender\u2019s end.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

DMARC – An Added Benefit is a Better Reputation\u00a0for Your Business <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Ensuring security is also the primary goal of DMARC, but there\u2019s another benefit to embracing and integrating DMARC policies: building a better reputation. With a DMARC deployment, the domain owner can earn credit for adhering to global email best-sending practices, and email platforms will notice.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This means that emails will more readily and comfortably land in various inboxes instead of the dreaded spam folder, allowing more recipients to engage with your company.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The Rising Threat of Email Fraud<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Business email compromise (BEC) attacks are surging. According to the <\/span>2023 FBI Internet Crime Report<\/span><\/a>, BEC scam losses have increased nearly 58% since 2020, with a reported revenue loss of $2,946,830,270 for its victims. (To compare, in 2019, the reported number of losses was $1,776,549,688, or roughly a billion dollars less, give or take a few hundred million.)<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Every company is vulnerable to BEC attacks, but this is especially true for small and mid-sized companies that lack the same resources as global corporations.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Considering that even Facebook and Google have fallen victim to phishing schemes in the past \u2013 two organizations that definitively have pretty good cybersecurity and technology resources \u2013 it stands to reason that every organization around the world is at risk.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Implementing DMARC \u2013 the challenges and how to move forward<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/h3>\n

Arguably, the biggest hurdle when embracing and implementing DMARC is the technical knowledge required to move forward. The details and instructions for implementing DMARC are not widely understood, which is why it is especially challenging for smaller and mid-sized organizations that don\u2019t have teams of IT experts on the payroll.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Most companies on a smaller scale simply do not have the resources to fully understand and research the trio of standards involved or how to ensure all aspects of DMARC are implemented correctly. For example, here are a couple of common hurdles when it comes to DMARC implementation:<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n