DMARC record is a must for every domain owner. If you have a website, you would want to ensure that your customers will only receive emails that you have sent yourself. The communication between you and your visitors will remain clear.

The DMARC record explained.

The acronym of DMARC record stands for Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance. It is a technical standard that helps protect email senders and receivers from spam, phishing, and spoofing. It uses both SPF and DKIM to secure email exchanges. When you set up your DMARC record correctly for your domain, it will decrease email phishing because of the reporting of SPF. Also, it will reduce spoofing thanks to the encryption of DKIM. 

Your email sent success rate will improve, and less emails that you have sent will end in the spam folder.

When you use a DMARC record, it will provide one more security level above the DKIM and SPF. It adds an important function, reporting.

When setting it up stronger, and if even SPF and DKIM pass, the DMARC will still detect it and block it. You also can make it lighter and define the use to only DKIM or only SPF. 

Why is it a good idea to have DMARC record?

DMARC is the latest trend of email authentication techniques. It confirms that the sender’s email messages are guarded by both SPF and DKIM records. So, the DMARC authentication is always a good idea.

1. They are not able to use your domain name for phishing attacks. DMARC record is capable of reporting to the servers which are receiving that the domain name is associated with those specific servers. Any differences should be directly discarded. It is possible to work with letting only the good emails or suspending all bad emails, or both.
2. You send emails uninterrupted. The emails will be encrypted. And the recipient will be capable of decrypting them with the public key. Having a DMARC record will ensure that the domain could be trusted.

How does it work?

DMARC uses policies that the administrator sets. It is about determining the email authentication practices. And also, how the receiving email server should behave if an email violates a policy.

When the receiving email server accepts a new email, it performs a DNS lookup to examine the DMARC record. It starts watching for:

• Is the message’s DKIM signature valid?
• Is the IP address of the sender one of the approved the sending domain’s SPF records?
• Does the header in the message presents decent “domain alignment”?

The server DMARC method accepts, denies, or flags the email with all of the above deliberations. 

And in the end, the server will send a message to the sender with a report.

What are the benefits of DMARC?

Implementing a DMARC record guards your brand by preventing uncertified individuals from sending mail from your domain. In some scenarios, even only adding a DMARC record can benefit in boosting reputation. DMARC helps to build a standard policy for administering messages that fail to authenticate. It allows the email ecosystem as unity becomes safer and more reliable.