Imagine receiving emails from anyone without knowing if the sender is legitimate. How would you know which ones to trust? Which emails would you respond to and why?
Distinguishing between fraudulent and legitimate emails would confuse anybody. Fortunately, email authentication handles most of the grunt work.
It helps email providers determine whether an email is from the person who claims to have sent it. If the provider feels confident that the sender is who they say they are, the chances increase that the provider will deliver the email to the intended recipient.
Providers count Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) as one of the best email authentication protocols. Organizations use DMARC software to verify that emails from their company domain are authenticated against DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) and Sender-Policy Framework (SPF) standards.
To authenticate your email, follow the steps below:
Email authentication aims to prevent obvious fraudulent activity, like scamming attempts, but there are some more subtle reasons why organizations should prioritize effective email authentication techniques.
Implementing email authentication helps reduce the risk of phishing and spoofing. Without email authentication practices, anyone could email whomever they wanted to at any time. While this still happens occasionally, it would be nearly impossible to determine whether a person emailing you is who they claim to be without proof of identification.
Authenticating emails tries to catch spam and other suspicious messages. An unauthenticated email is more likely to be flagged as spam or rejected entirely. Increasing the odds of your email deliverability goes a long way in ensuring our emails reach the right people.
Far too often, someone with less-than-great intentions creates an email address similar to an organization's in order to present themselves as an employee and commit fraudulent behaviors like requesting gift cards or money for “urgent” matters. The email may only vary by one or two characters.
Situations like these can damage a brand’s reputation and image. Businesses may lose the trust of their current and potential customers. While these situations aren’t entirely preventable, email authentication can help decrease their likelihood.
Email authentication works by verifying the legitimacy of an email sender using Domain Name System (DNS) records. The three main email authentication methods that get the most use, each with varying levels of security and DNS setup are mentioned below.
SPF tells email servers who can send emails on behalf of a domain. This method allows domain owners to specify which IP addresses they trust.
SPF records work like this:
Source: Mailtrap
While SPF records support authentication, they aren’t foolproof or accurate all of the time, meaning emails that spam might end up in the recipient’s inbox and legit messages might go to spam. Forwarded emails can also cause authentication failures because a user forwards the message from a new IP address for the first time. It’s likely not included in the original sender’s SPF record.
DKIM uses public and private key cryptography to verify an email sender's legitimacy for its domain. For verification, it matches a public key stored in the DNS records with a private key in the email, similar to a unique digital signature.
Here’s how DKIM works:
Source: Mailtrap
Unlike SPF records, DKIM signatures are not typically affected by mail forwarding as long as the forwarder doesn’t drastically alter the email content.
DMARC builds upon the SPF and DKIM validation methods to allow domain owners to specify policies for emails that fail verification points. In other words, DMARC tries to verify an email, and if it can’t, it determines how to handle the email based on what the domain owner has outlined in the policies.
Here’s how DMARC works:
Source: Mailtrap
For DMARC to pass, SPF or DKIM must clear the check and the domain used by SPF or DKIM must align with the domain of the email sender’s address in the “From:” line. Possible outcomes include:
If you want to explore more about DMARC and try it with your domain, check out the “Learn and Test DMARC” console as an excellent place to start. You can send an email and walk through a visual demonstration of how email servers communicate and run SPF, DKIM, and DMARC checks.
Below are some other methods for verifying the sender’s identity and enhancing email security.
Conducting regular email authentication checks makes sure your setup is functioning correctly, and your emails are secure and validated. There are several steps you can take to check email authentication. Here are a few:
Email providers use email authentication to validate an email’s sender. When you don’t authenticate your domain’s email addresses, your emails may not reach your intended recipient. Protect yourself and your organization against phishing attempts and a damaged reputation with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.
Know how to recognize phishing attacks so you can prevent them.