On April 15-16th multiple sources reported seeing an increase in the number of DMARC reports generated or received. Between two and three and a half times as many reports per day were observed, depending on the source. There was some hope there would be a public announcement during the RSA Conference in San Francisco last […]
Email Authentication and Messaging Operations
Effective email authentication requires an organization to have clear control of its messaging operations, and it can take a lot of work to get there if you don’t already have it. But many don’t realize that deploying DMARC – before or while you’re deploying DKIM and SPF – can offer a valuable external view of […]
Top Alexa Websites and Email Authentication, Part 1
The more popular a website is, the more likely the average consumer is to trust a fraudulent message that impersonates that website’s Internet domain. One might expect that the websites at the top of the list employ email authentication to protect against that possibility, but what about sites further down the list? This piece will […]
Phishing Solved, DMARC Adopters Bored (April Fools!)
Dateline: April 1, 2015; Berkeley, California – Today major mailbox providers and email senders expressed their frustration that nobody is phishing their customers and domains. The universal adoption of email authentication technologies such as SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, and the sudden elimination of spam, has caused criminals to abandon this once-popular activity. “I guess I […]
Bad Actors: Please Adopt Email Authentication
A recent Trend Micro blog post suggests that the bad actors behind a current ransomware campaign are using email authentication and DMARC to make their messages more effective. One online article citing the post even includes a headline that incorrectly suggests that DMARC somehow enables the malware to bypass filters – which it assuredly does […]
DMARC is a Proven Tool in the Fight Against Fraudulent Email
San Francisco, California – February 18, 2015 – Since it was introduced to the public in 2012, the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, & Conformance (DMARC) specification has proven its value in combating fraudulent email. Email is an essential channel of communication but to be effective, the recipient must trust that it comes from the identified […]
Kaspersky: Phishing attacks on PayPal down due to DMARC
On February 12th Kaspersky Labs published a report titled “Financial cyberthreats in 2014.” This report takes a broad view of malware and email-based attacks on financial institutions and/or their customers. It notes some broad trends, like an almost 6% decrease in phishing attacks against banks, and that the number of malware attacks involving Bitcoin mining […]
Who Is Sending Email As Your Company?
You might expect that the IT department or security team knows who’s sending email using your company’s domains. But for a variety of reasons these groups are often unaware of many legitimate senders — not to mention all the bad actors. Fortunately you can get a more complete view by using DMARC‘s reporting features.
Email Vendors: Time to Build in DMARC
DMARC is extremely useful, yet I’ve heard some vendors are putting their implementations on hold because of the IETF DMARC working group. You really shouldn’t wait though — it’s been in wide use for nearly three years, enterprises are looking at DMARC for B2B traffic, and the working group charter is limited in it’s scope […]
Prominent Brands Cut Email Abuse by More than 50% with DMARC
New Data Reveals the Significant Value in the Protection Provided by DMARC San Jose, California – February 18, 2014 – DMARC.org, an industry collaborative working to increase consumer trust in email, published new data demonstrating how DMARC adoption reduces the risks associated with fraudulent email. Senders, such as Facebook, PayPal, and Twitter, as well as […]