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Mastering email security with DMARC

Mastering email security with DMARC

Mastering email security with DMARC

Email is a vital business tool. Even with the emergence of communication hub products like Slack and Microsoft Teams, it is email that delivers the majority of business messaging today. The way that email was initially designed means that malicious third parties can spoof email addresses and pretend to be from an organisation. This opens up anyone receiving such a spoofed email to phishing attacks, malware deployments and other cyber attacks based on tricking people into disclosing data that they shouldn’t. We all know the implications of such successful attacks on an operational level, and on a repetitional level due to mandatory disclosure under GDPR.

The good news is that this issue has been addressed by a security standard named DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance). DMARC provides all email senders and receivers with the ability to verify that every email from a domain is really from whom the sender claims to be. It does this by modifying DNS records with additional information that can’t be spoofed. Any organisation can adopt DMARC to protect their email domains from spoofing, and it is the only sure-fire way to let email receivers know that the incoming messages are authentic.

Security partners in the Renaissance network provide DMARC solutions. Contact us today to discuss your needs. Read on for an overview of the benefits of DMARC and the how deploying it can enhance your current cybersecurity protections.

The Benefits of DMARC

Well known organisations all deploy DMARC solutions to protect their brands from spoofing. Today over 2.5 Billion email accounts in businesses and other organisations are protected by DMARC. Governmental and federal organisations such as the UK Government, NIST, and the US Federal Trade Commission all recommend the use of DMARC.

The benefits of DMARC protection include:

  • Brand Protection - it is a question of when, not if, your business email domain will be used for a cyberattack against other organisations. Whether it’s phishing, malware distribution, or nuisance spam, your brand is harmed when perceived to be associated with these malicious emails.
  • Increased Email Deliverability - receiving email systems have powerful spam filters. They are often very aggressive in what they classify as spam. Implementing DMARC allows sending servers to inform receiving servers that the emails are legitimate. This reduces the likelihood that they will be classed as spam.
  • Reduced Service Calls - preventing the use of an email domain to cybercriminals minimises the number of support calls that result from suspicious emails your clients and business partners receive.
  • Visibility into Cyberattack Risk - DMARC allows you to see the volume of third parties sending emails from your domain. If they are cybercriminals using the domain, then you can take steps to prevent this use. If they are legitimate third-party services that are allowed to send emails on your behalf, then DMARC will give you visibility to ensure they are complying with your email delivery best practices.
  • Business email compromise (BEC) protection - most people have seen emails pretending to be from the CEO or CFO of your organisation, or a business partner, asking for confidential information. DMARC protects against this often used method of cyberattack.

DMARC needs to be part of a broader solution to protect against email domain name spoofing adequately. DMARC on its own will protect against Direct/Same Domain Spoofing, but additional security will be needed to protect against Display Name Spoofing and Look-alike Domain Spoofing. In these latter cases, a character in an email address is changed to make it slightly different but very like a well know legitimate brand. For example, by changing one character in the domain name such as the letter O to be a number 0. Protection against this type of attack is included or can be added with DMARC solutions, but technically it is not part of the DMARC standard. It is also worth noting that implementing DMARC does not give a DMARC solution supplier the ability to read sent emails.

Conclusion

Implementing DMARC protection for an email domain is an essential and necessary part of a modern cybersecurity strategy. It can protect your users, your business partners, and your brand. Various DMARC solution are available from our security partners. Contact Renaissance today to find out which DMARC solution is the best fit for your organisation.