Understanding DMARC

DMARC, which stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance, is a technology that helps prevent email fraud and phishing attacks. It allows domain owners to specify which email servers are authorized to send emails on behalf of their domain. DMARC also provides reporting capabilities to help domain owners monitor and analyze email activity related to their domain.

The Steps to Creating a DMARC Record

To create a DMARC record, you need to follow these steps:

Step 1: Determine your DMARC policy

Step 2: Publish your DMARC record as a DNS TXT record

Step 3: Monitor and analyze DMARC reports

Step 1: Determine Your DMARC Policy

The DMARC policy defines how email receivers should handle emails that fail DMARC authentication. There are three possible policies:

None: This policy is used during DMARC implementation to monitor email activity without taking any action.

Quarantine: This policy asks email receivers to put marked emails in the recipient’s spam or quarantine folder but still delivers them.

Reject: This policy requires email receivers to reject marked emails during the SMTP conversation and not deliver them at all.

Step 2: Publish Your DMARC Record

After determining your DMARC policy, you need to publish your DMARC record to your DNS TXT record. Your DNS provider should have an interface to allow you to create and publish TXT records. When creating a DMARC record, you need to decide on the following settings:

Policy: The DMARC policy you decided on in step 1.

Subdomain Policy: Whether your DMARC policy applies to all subdomains or only the primary domain.

Alignment Modes: How DMARC should compare the domains in the header “From” field to the domains in the DKIM and SPF signatures.

Reporting: The email address(es) to which the DMARC receivers will send feedback about the results of the DMARC checks.

Here is an example of a DMARC record:

_dmarc.example.com. 3600 IN TXT “v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com; ruf=mailto:dmarc@example.com; sp=reject; adkim=r; aspf=r; pct=100”

Step 3: Monitor and Analyze DMARC Reports

After publishing your DMARC record, your email recipients will start sending reports to the email address(es) specified in the “rua” tag of the DMARC record. These reports contain information about email activity related to your domain, including the number of emails sent and whether they passed or failed the DMARC authentication. You should use this information to help improve your email authentication and security policies.

In Conclusion

Setting up a DMARC record is easy and can help prevent fraudulent emails and phishing attacks. Follow the three steps listed above to create your DMARC record and start monitoring your email activity today. Should you want to discover more about the subject, https://www.tangent.com/Solutions/security-compliance/dmarc, to supplement your reading. Uncover worthwhile insights and fresh perspectives!

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