SPF Best Practices for Protection Against Email Spoofing and Phishing; A Guide for CISOs

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 6 minutes

Emails are important yet one of the most vulnerable strings of corporate communication. Not to forget how AI-written sophisticated emails are making it more challenging for CISOs to deploy filters to detect and burn illegitimate emails. Gone are the days when detecting poor grammar, inconsistencies, unprofessional graphics, etc., was enough to tag an email as…

Sender Policy Framework Error Code 550- What Prompts it?

Sender Policy Framework Error Code 550- What Prompts it?

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 3 minutes

Sender Policy Framework allows domain owners to specify all the IP addresses that they allow to be used for sending emails. They can instruct recipients how to deal with emails sent from unauthorized IP addresses. However, sometimes, their SPF record encounters error code 550– which can prompt due to several reasons. At times, it prompts…

The UK’s Central Digital and Data Office Solved a Unique Problem with Sender Policy Framework

The UK’s Central Digital and Data Office Solved a Unique Problem with Sender Policy Framework

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 3 minutes

In 2022, the Securing Government Services team at the Central Digital and Data Office came across an interesting problem with SPF. The team found a small bug with how UK government domains’ administrators managed the Sender Policy Framework or SPF records. SPF is an email authentication protocol that ensures only emails sent from trusted and…

Including Third-Party Vendors in Your SPF Record is Important; Here’s How It’s Done

Including Third-Party Vendors in Your SPF Record is Important; Here’s How It’s Done

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 4 minutes

Businesses outsource many tasks to third-party vendors, and if they send emails on your behalf, it’s important you make them a part of your SPF record. Otherwise, the situation will lead to email deliverability issues, which may go unnoticed for a long time, hampering communication, productivity, and operations at multiple levels. Also, ensure the team…

AI Automation is Enabling CISOs and Their Teams to Be Quick and Accurate

AI Automation is Enabling CISOs and Their Teams to Be Quick and Accurate

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 4 minutes

Tech experts say that AI won’t replace humans any time soon. This is true. However, AI is empowering humans to automate easy and voluminous tasks, allowing them to utilize their time and focus on something more concrete to their cybersecurity strategies.  AI tools are being widely used in the cybersecurity field for filtering out large…

How to Fix “550 5.7 0 Email Rejected Per SPF Policy”

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 2 minutes

Email deliverability is one of the most pertinent struggles that most organizations struggle with. The hardest part about this is getting to the root cause of your emails not landing in the recipient’s inbox. Among all the reasons that impact your email deliverability, “550 5.7.0 Email Rejected Per SPF Policy” stands out as a significant…

The Emergence of Sender Policy Framework to Combat Email Phishing

The Emergence of Sender Policy Framework to Combat Email Phishing

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 5 minutes

Digitization is both a boon and a bane. With the rapid advancements in the technological sphere, there has been a steep rise in spiteful activities. The same holds true for positive ones as well.   On the other hand, one cannot ignore the key role played by emails, especially in the day-to-day work arena. Email is…

What is Gmail’s ‘Best Guess’ SPF Status?

What is Gmail’s ‘Best Guess’ SPF Status?

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 4 minutes

Gmail sometimes guesses the SPF status of senders lacking an SPF record published in their domain’s DNS. This so-called ‘best guess’ can harm genuine communications or let a spam email pass through; thus, it’s better to shield your domain with SPF so that Gmail doesn’t have to assume authenticity. Let’s give it a closer look….

Understanding How to Fix SPF Failure

Understanding How to Fix SPF Failure

ByBrad Slavin Reading Time: 4 minutes

Sender Policy Framework or SPF improves the sender’s reputation and email delivery in addition to keeping phishing and spoofing attacks at bay. However, the intricacies involved in creating and managing an SPF record can cause many instances of SPF failures. These issues should be identified, addressed, and fixed at the earliest to avoid downtime and…