Here’s a harsh truth: spoofing attacks are more frequent and prevalent than you think. They are not just about someone pretending to be you by using sneaky iterations of your business name. The real issue is them capitalizing on your brand name, your credibility, and your trustworthiness to deceive others.
That is, if there is so much at stake, then imagine what the implications could be for your business. From financial losses to reputational damage, everything built up until now would be out for a toss. But we have a good news! There’s a way to help your business and brand fend off such devastating attacks, and that is by implementing DMARC.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance, or DMARC, is not just another email authentication protocol; it is a broader approach to safeguarding your email ecosystem. With that in mind, let us look at how this protocol can help you spot and ward off email spoofing attacks.
The threat of spoofed emails
Out of 347.3 billion emails sent in a day, 100 million are spam emails blocked by Gmail! The situation is so bad that businesses, irrespective of their scale and size, are under the radar of hackers. These hackers try to dupe users by sending fraudulent emails that appear to come from trusted sources. Looking at these staggering numbers, if you have questions like “What is email spoofing?”, “How do cyber attackers pull off such deceptive tricks to mislead the targets?” you’re not alone! Here, we’ll answer them all.
Let’s start by clearing the basics. Email spoofing is an insidious technique wherein the attacker simply forges the email header—that is, the “From” address—to make it appear to be from someone you know and trust. This, then, makes you believe that the email is genuine; hence, you are more likely to interact with the email and do as the message says. This could be something as simple as clicking a link, which could lead to a malicious site, downloading an infected attachment, or giving out confidential information.
Enabling DMARC for heightened security
As you know, any attacker can spoof your business; you need something that is robust and offers all-around protection against these threats. There’s one protocol that checks all these boxes— DMARC. It keeps track of all emails that claim to come from your domain and makes sure that they are, in fact, legitimate. DMARC does this by confirming that emails are authentic using existing protocols like SPF and DKIM. If and when an email fails these checks, DMARC asks you to specify how it should be handled—should it be monitored, quarantined, or rejected? Depending on what policy you deploy, it takes the corresponding action. Let’s break it down to see how it is done:
- If the email passes DMARC checks, it will go through and will be delivered normally
- Assuming that it fails the DMARC authentication check, the email may either be quarantined, rejected, or still delivered, depending on the configured policy.
- If the email is from someone in the approved senders’ list, DMARC doesn’t check it, even when DMARC is on
What the attacker then does is either forge a domain that looks like a legitimate one or change the display name of the sender to masquerade as a trusted contact. Since we, as users, tend to engage and trust familiar names and brands, we often fall for the trap.
Apart from configuring how emails that fail SPF and DKIM checks should be treated, you can set the percentage at which you want the policy to be deployed. This can be done with the policy percentage tag (pct). Basically, the percentage tag allows you to control how strict you want your policy to be. Let’s say you have set the pct value to 30 with the DMARC policy set to “reject,” so only 30% of the emails that fail authentication checks will be rejected, and the remaining 70% will be quarantined. It helps implement DMARC in phases, enabling you to understand the impact of your policy before you enforce a 100% strict policy.
Detecting spoofed sender with DMARC
Whether you have a single domain or use multiple domains to connect with your audience, there is always a risk of cybercriminals spoofing your domains. One of the most trusted ways to protect your entire email ecosystem and prevent phishing and ransomware attacks is by enabling spoofed sender detection with DMARC. Here’s how you can do it:
- Login to your email security platform.
- Once you’re in, head over to the section that includes email authentication or anti-spam settings.
- The next step is to select the domains you want to enable spoofed sender detection. You can also choose the “apply the settings globally” option if it is available.
- Look for the option related to DMARC or Spoofed Sender Detection and enable it.
- Save your changes, and you are done!
DMARC records for enhanced domain protection
The reporting feature of DMARC also serves as an important tool to prevent spoofing. DMARC reports give you an overview of how your domain is being used across the email ecosystem. These reports include details regarding which emails have passed and which have failed DMARC checks. This includes the ones that do not get through SPF and DKIM authentication.
With such in-depth information, you can spot patterns that might indicate spoofing attempts or unauthorized use of your domain. By regularly going over these reports, you can strategically fine-tune your DMARC policy to be more strict. This way, you can block future spoofing attempts and keep your domain secure.
Email spoofing is a plague that can hamper your business operations, lead to financial losses, and cause reputational damage, to name a few. To curtail this plague, you need a solution that is both robust and reliable. And as you might have guessed, DMARC is the answer to it all!
So, are you still second-guessing DMARC implementation? Are you waiting for a spoofing attack to wreak havoc on your business? Get in touch with an expert to start your email authentication journey today!
