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Achieving DMARC Enforcement

What is DMARC Enforcement?

Researchers unveil that most companies stop at the DMARC implementation stage and don’t really proceed to enforcement. This can prove to be a huge blunder! 

Enforcement is a very crucial part of DMARC, as solely implementing DMARC in your organization is not enough to configure and mitigate fraudulent emails. A key function of DMARC is that it provides domain owners with the ability to enforce a DMARC policy of how they would like receivers to handle emails and messages that fail DMARC authentication.

DMARC enforcement at an organization allows the domain owner to specify how they want to handle an email that fails authentication, unlike SPF and DKIM. If we assign DMARC policy with the “p” parameter, domain owners are presented with three options for configuring unauthorized emails:

p=none policy provides zero enforcement and allows unauthorized emails that fail verification to land in the receiver’s inbox without any hindrance. 

 

p=quarantine policy provides lodges emails that fail DMARC authentication into the spam folder of the receiver’s email server, thereby quarantining them. 

 

p=reject policy deletes or discards unauthorized emails that fail authentication before they are delivered at all.

 
 
 
What is DMARC Enforcement?

By setting your DMARC policy to either quarantine or reject, you can enable DMARC Enforcement at your organization.

p=none is essentially considered to be a monitor mode or test mode, providing no enforcement, but instead enabling domain owners to troubleshoot authentication settings evading the risk of authorized emails from getting blocked.

Importance of DMARC Enforcement

With the help of DMARC enforcement, domain owners can direct receivers to put illegitimate and unauthenticated emails into the spam folder or completely reject them into the trash bin. If DMARC enforcement is not implemented effectively in an organization, domain owners will receive reports on the malicious IPs trying to spoof their domain, but they would have to helplessly witness domain abusers and impersonators continue to wreak havoc, without the ability to stop them.

A DMARC record without enforcement is as useless as a security guard who checks visitor IDs but lets everyone in regardless of whether or not they are legitimate.

Why is DMARC Enforcement Imperative to Businesses?

If your ultimate objective is to keep direct domain spoofing, email phishing, and impersonation attacks at bay, DMARC enforcement is as imperative as it is indispensable for your business! With your DMARC policy set to quarantine or reject you would be able to witness the benefits of DMARC enforcement at your organization, which are:

  • Only emails that you have authorized pass the authentication and get delivered to your employees, partners, and customer base. Everything else lands in the spam folder or gets discarded.
 
  • DMARC enforcement improves email deliverability rate as ISPs take into account your DMARC status while making delivery decisions based on the reputation of the sending domain. 
 
  • Boosts brand reputation and reliability among customers and partners as well as protects your confidential databases and finances from the reach of cybercriminals.
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Advanced Email Authentication Course