SPF, DKIM and DMARC in Google Apps to Enhance Security

It has been a worldwide concern to secure emails and preventing fraudsters from sending malicious content so that the delicate data of an organization does not get corrupted due to these attacks.

In order to have this protection, there are certain things that have been made available in the Google Apps that needs to be configured so that the emails become less attractive to the spammers, fraudsters or the phishers.

Firstly, people should know what are the different types of email abuse that are associated with email sender forgery. They are listed below:

• Spam

• Malware

• Phishers

• Frausters

  
  

Nobody will want their organization's email to be marked as illegitimate and for that SPF records come into play.

So, what exactly is SPF…??

Sender Policy Framework (SPF), is a saviour that identifies ones domain’s authenticity and prevents unauthorized sources from sending felonious emails from your domain.

SPF is not about stopping spam but it is all about controlling it and stopping mail forgeries.

DKIM too is an important aspect where domain authentication is a necessity.

DKIM, DomainKeys Identified Mails is a TXT Record that is published in the Domain Name System(DNS). It involves public-key cryptography that consists of both public and private keys which are two interlinked entity and they work together to authenticate a sender’s existence and shows who they actually are by using these keys only and thereby making the communication secure over the public channels.

DKIM provides a way by which a domain name identity is validated.using the public-key cryptography. Whatever outgoing mails are sent through Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) server they always require the right private key and prefix order so as to match a public DNS record which is then verified by the receiving mail server.

Now, there is one more entity which is inseparable and goes along with SPF and DKIM.

This is DMARC…!!

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance), make email communication more secure by helping senders and receivers to work together.

DMARC actually helps to indicate that the messages being sent by the message sender are protected with SPF and/or DKIM. If an email does not pass SPF or DKIM authentication then according to the DMARC policies the message sent by the sender is either rejected or sent to the junk Also, a report is sent to the sender to allow him to check whether the messages sent have passed or failed.

So, to save the organization's data and help enhance security it is very important to implement the above-said Standards for a better working environment.