A DMARC setup that is tailored to protect you against the impending threats of cyber attacks and ransomware is exactly what you need to make sure your online identity stays unharmed. Ever thought about what could happen if your email domain is forged? Well, lots! A spoofed domain can be used to carry out myriads of illegal and malicious activities and can lead to monetary loss for the company as well as inflict permanent damage to your reputation.
Follow the steps below to establish an effective DMARC setup for your domains:
1. Prerequisites
One of the 1st things you need to set up is an SPF and a DKIM record. DMARC builds on these protocols to check for header alignment while verifying the origin of email sources. You can use our free online tools such as an SPF record generator to create these records for you while also ensuring that your DNS records are devoid of errors.
Before you attempt the above, make sure you have identified all your email sources and third-party vendors to include them in your SPF record and enable DKIM signing for them.
2. DMARC Setup
Subsequently, now you need to publish a DMARC TXT record for your domain. While doing that you need to take into consideration the following factors:
- Your DMARC domain policy depending on how you want email receiving MTAs to treat malicious emails
- Whether or not you want a different policy for your subdomains
- Your SPF and DKIM alignment modes
- Enabling DMARC reporting for your domains
Given below is what your record may look like after you have selected your desired criteria:
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:rua@domain.com; fo=1;
3. Need for Enforcement
While starting off on your email authentication journey, it is recommended that you set your policy mode to monitoring only (p=none) so you can easily track your email channels and delivery issues. After monitoring your email flow, when you gain a certain level of assurance and confidence, the next step should be to shift to an enforced policy. This is because only DMARC at p=reject/quarantine can stop spoofers from forging your address and running phishing campaigns using your domain name.
You can safely move towards the reject policy by configuring our DMARC analyzer free for your domain. Our team of email authentication experts, interactive setup wizard, and customized dashboard has helped domain owners from around the world embrace the protocols easily and effectively with proven results and improved deliverability rates over time!