Brief Introduction to BIMI

What is BIMI and How Does it Strengthen Your Email’s Security?

BIMI is a standard that can be configured by making certain DNS-based alterations, allowing organizations to display their unique brand logos alongside DMARC-compliant emails. BIMI centralizes logo display by empowering domain owners to share a single, standard image. This eliminates the need to create proprietary systems for logo display and management, and the frustration associated with brand proliferation. It provides a better user experience across the email inbox.

There are a few key requirements that you need to keep in mind before implementing the protocol. They are as follows:

• Prior to implementing BIMI, make sure your domain is set up with a DMARC policy of either ‘reject’ or ‘quarantine’ 
• You need to convert your BIMI logo image to an SVG file that abides by the BIMI standard specifications
• Get a Verified Mark Certificate from a trusted certification authority (optional but recommended)

Before your emails reach your receivers’ inbox, they are authenticated against DMARC. On passing DMARC, the receiving server queries the sender’s DNS for a BIMI record. When found, the sender-designated logo is then displayed in the receiver’s inbox. While not directly a security protocol, BIMI requires DMARC authentication to function. This ensures that emails are verified before reaching your clients, thereby extending and enforcing the implementation of security standards.

Note: The display of your logo when using BIMI is determined by the mailbox provider. Only the mailbox providers that support BIMI show the logo.