How to Read DMARC Reports?

How to enable DMARC reporting for your domains?

In order to configure the DMARC report for your domain you need to:

1. Create a DMARC record for your domain
2. While creating your record, in the “rua” criterion, you need to enter the email address to which you want your aggregate reports to be sent
3. In the “ruf” criterion, you need to enter the email address to which you want your forensic reports to be sent
4. After you have successfully filled up the other criteria and hit the “generate” button, the AI will create a TXT record for you to publish on your DNS

Note: DMARC forensic reports are not supported by all domains. 

How to Read DMARC Reports: Reading DMARC Raw Reports

Your DMARC reports, also called raw reports, provide essential data about email activity on your domain that are necessary to help protect you against future phishing attacks. They’re available in XML format and they’re usually sent by email with the subject “DMARC Report.” There are essentially two types of reports:

• DMARC Aggregate (RUA) Report
• DMARC Forensic (RUF) Report

You can visit PoweDMARC’s knowledge base to learn more about each of them and how to configure them for your domain easily.

Reading DMARC RUA reports can be a bit of a hassle for a non-technical person, here is an example of a raw report:

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″ ?>

<feedback>

  <report_metadata>

    <org_name>google.com</org_name>

    <email>[email protected]</email>

   <extra_contact_info>http://google.com/dmarc/support</extra_contact_info>

    <report_id>8293631894893125362</report_id>

    <date_range>

      <begin>1234573120</begin>

      <end>1234453590</end>

    </date_range>

  </report_metadata>

  <policy_published>

    <domain>yourdomain.com</domain>

    <adkim>r</adkim>

    <aspf>r</aspf>

    <p>none</p>

    <sp>none</sp>

    <pct>100</pct>

  </policy_published>

  <record>

    <row>

      <source_ip>302.0.214.308</source_ip>

      <count>2</count>

      <policy_evaluated>

        <disposition>none</disposition>

        <dkim>fail</dkim>

        <spf>pass</spf>

      </policy_evaluated>

    </row>

    <identifiers>

      <header_from>yourdomain.com</header_from>

    </identifiers>

    <auth_results>

      <dkim>

        <domain>yourdomain.com</domain>

        <result>fail</result>

        <human_result></human_result>

      </dkim>

      <spf>

        <domain>yourdomain.com</domain>

        <result>pass</result>

      </spf>

    </auth_results>

  </record>

</feedback>

Breaking Down a DMARC Raw Report

Let’s take you through the various sections of the report to help you understand how to read DMARC reports, what they stand for and how to read it. In the raw file for your reports, you can find information about:

•  Your ISP, the name of your email service provider

<?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”UTF-8″ ?>

<feedback>

  <report_metadata>

    <org_name>google.com</org_name>

    <email>[email protected]</email>

   <extra_contact_info>http://google.com/dmarc/support</extra_contact_info>

•  The report ID number

 <report_id>8293631894893125362</report_id>

• The beginning and ending date range (in seconds)

<date_range>

      <begin>1234573120</begin>

      <end>1234453590</end>

    </date_range>

• Your DMARC record specifications as published in your domain’s DNS

 <policy_published>

    <domain>yourdomain.com</domain>

    <adkim>r</adkim>

    <aspf>r</aspf>

    <p>none</p>

    <sp>none</sp>

    <pct>100</pct>

  </policy_published>

• IP address of the sending source

<source_ip>302.0.214.308</source_ip>

• An overview of your authentication results (SPF and DKIM pass/fail result summary)

  <policy_evaluated>

        <disposition>none</disposition>

        <dkim>fail</dkim>

        <spf>pass</spf>

      </policy_evaluated>

• From: domain

<header_from>yourdomain.com</header_from>

• DKIM authentication results

<dkim>

        <domain>yourdomain.com</domain>

        <result>fail</result>

        <human_result></human_result>

      </dkim>

• SPF authentication results

<spf>

        <domain>yourdomain.com</domain>

        <result>pass</result>

      </spf>