How does DMARC protect brands/businesses?
Protecting your brand is of utmost importance when sending outbound emails to customers. Unfortunately, once the messages leave your domain, hackers often have a field day by turning your friendly correspondences into malicious spoofing, phishing, and spam campaigns. This, in turn, creates a soured perception of your company in the public’s eyes. By implementing DMARC to help protect your business emails and fortify your name, scammers of the world have been warned: DMARC will defeat you.
How DMARC Works
DMARC is used in conjunction with SPF and DKIM, and these three components work wonders together. Essentially, a sender’s DMARC record instructs a recipient of next steps (e.g., accept, quarantine, reject) if suspicious email claiming to come from a specific sender is received. Some common policy decisions addressed by a DMARC record include: Does the message have a proper DKIM-Signature? Does it match authorized senders in the SPF record? Should I pass it on as legitimate, quarantine it for further analysis, or send it back to the sender as corrupt? And, is there an email address available that I can forward information regarding suspicious emails to notify the sender of an issue? DMARC has your email delivery situation covered.
How DMARC Protects Your Brand
With today’s online climate overrun with fraudulent activity, safeguarding your emails is a significant step in solidifying your overall brand and reputation. There are numerous examples of hackers impersonating your company and using its trusted name to steal personal information from unsuspecting email recipients. Fortunately, the DMARC email authentication protocol is available to protect customers from unsolicited messages sent from your domain, which keeps your established reputation intact.
No business aims to be associated with fraud against their current or potential customers. By not shielding your domain with DMARC, scammers will undoubtedly take full advantage of this opportunity to deceive your intended email recipients. Because the inevitable spoofed or phished messages originated at your domain, the receivers will naturally associate negativity and trickery with your brand. Therefore, the ability to receive feedback from customers that either quarantine or reject suspect emails claiming to be from your company allows you to stop scams in their tracks while maintaining a positive reputation with consumers.
Although DMARC works in tandem with SPF and DKIM, its reporting function sets it apart from fellow email authentication mechanisms. With this protocol, you can view who is sending emails on your domain’s behalf and prevent hackers from using it to send suspicious messages. Moreover, DMARC provides regular reports to domain owners that show how every email domain is being used and how authentication records are interpreted.
DMARC Rundown
While implementing DMARC might not to mandatory, MxToolbox highly recommends utilizing it because fraudulent email activity increases hourly. Why leave your recognized brand and credible reputation at risk to hackers around the world? The proven DMARC protocol allows you to fight spoofing, phishing, and spam attacks with help from your customer base. For assistance getting started, take advantage of the MxToolbox DMARC Record Generator and our Delivery Center initiatives.