Most organizations have strict norms and regulations on what resources their employees can access— like which systems are open to all, who gets special permissions like admin rights, or which tools are absolutely out of bounds. While most employees abide by these rules, there are some who find a way to work around them. This…
The Trello breach, which occurred in January 2024, resulted in approximately 15 million users having their email addresses, names, usernames, project management information, and activity logs scraped and offered for sale on a hacking forum. This incident raised significant concerns regarding user data security and highlighted the importance of implementing strong passwords and two-factor authentication…
Sender Policy Framework, or SPF, is a simple way to tell the receiving servers which IPs or mail servers are allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain. It basically means ‘allowlisting’ all those who are officially permitted to send emails as your business representatives. But that’s not all when it comes to implementing…
There are several free tools available for SPF flattening, including cfspf, which is tailored for users of Cloudflare, and DMARCDuty, which provides automatic SPF flattening without requiring self-hosting. Additionally, expurgate offers a self-hosted option for those who prefer more control over their SPF configurations. List of Free SPF Flattening Tools A variety of free SPF…
If your SPF is not working efficiently, chances are that your domain is linked with multiple SPF records. The problem with numerous SPF records is that they are inconsistent, which leads to unpredictable email authentication behavior. This misconfiguration breaks email authentication, triggering receiving mailboxes to reject the SPF check. Having multiple SPF records isn’t just…
SPF alignment refers to the process of ensuring that the domain used in an email’s “MAIL FROM” header matches the domain specified in the “From” address. This is a critical aspect of email authentication that helps prevent spoofing and enhances deliverability, especially within the context of DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) policies. What…
Each SPF record should not have more than 10 DNS lookups; otherwise, validation failures are triggered. SPF records of organizations with an intricate email infrastructure are more likely to hit this limit and experience permanent errors. This is where the process of SPF flattening steps in to keep the records within the limit of 10…
If you receive a Microsoft security alert email, first verify its authenticity by checking that it comes from ‘account-security-noreply@accountprotection.microsoft.com.’ If the email is legitimate, follow the instructions provided to secure your account, but always access your account directly through Microsoft’s official website instead of clicking on links in the email. Identifying Microsoft Security Alert Emails…
These days, IoT (Internet of Things) devices are everywhere. These are basically smart gadgets that are connected to the internet and communicate with each other. Some of the common ones around you are Amazon Echo (Alexa), smartwatches, industrial sensors, smart air conditioners, etc. While there is no doubt that these devices are making our lives…
You can check the SPF record for your domain by using various online tools, such as MXToolbox or Kitterman’s SPF Record Validator. Simply enter your domain name into these tools, and they will retrieve and validate your SPF record to identify any configuration issues that could affect email delivery. Introduction to SPF and DNS The…
