Executive Summary: DMARC is a pivotal component in safeguarding your organization from phishing and BEC threats. Implementing a ‘p=reject’ policy, facilitated by Red Sift OnDMARC, ensures that only authorized entities can use your domain, enhancing email security.
This article:
- Explores the significance of DMARC in defending against phishing and Business Email Compromise (BEC) attacks.
- Highlights the necessity of a ‘p=reject’ policy for optimal protection.
- Discusses how Red Sift OnDMARC simplifies DMARC implementation and monitoring.
Introduction
We’ll admit it, we’re pretty nerdy for email security and are passionate about ensuring your organization is protected from harmful cyber attacks and bad actors. You’ll often hear us talk about Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Compliance (DMARC) because…it’s kind of a big deal.
Yet, as Antony Seedhouse highlighted at the recent e-Crimes & Cybersecurity Congress in Frankfurt, Germany, many organizations still don’t fully understand the risks of non-DMARC compliance and how, by implementing an effective DMARC policy with a policy tuned to reject, they can control their outbound communications and stay secure today.
How does DMARC protect my organization?
DMARC is a standard email security mechanism built on DKIM and SPF that helps protect against email spoofing (domain impersonation) and phishing attacks. With DMARC, you can publish a policy in DNS that instructs email servers to reject unauthorized emails sent as From: your domain, securing your outbound communications.
As Antony explained, DMARC protects your organization by:
- Preventing fraud: DMARC ensures that only authorized senders can send emails on behalf of your domain.
- Protecting your brand: DMARC helps avoid hackers impersonating your company to trick others for financial gain or the harvesting of sensitive data.
- Boosting email security: DMARC checks if emails are properly authenticated before they’re delivered to recipients.
- Providing detailed reporting: Through DMARC forensic reporting, you can gain feedback on how your emails are being handled and if there are any potential threats.
Why should DMARC matter to you?
Understanding the significance of adopting DMARC and why your organization should prioritize implementation can be simplified into two key considerations: risk and regulatory compliance.
Risk
Despite most employees undergoing thorough anti-phishing training once a year, email phishing is still extremely prevalent and effective. In 2022, cyberinsurance firm Resilience reported that in 23.4% of its claims phishing was the initial point of failure.
Likewise, the financial cost of phishing attacks is staggering. The FBI’s IC3 2023 annual report estimated a $2.9 billion loss alone from effective Business Email Compromise (BEC) in 2023. If you’re not already taking the necessary measures to stay secure, including implementing DMARC, it could cost you in more ways than one.
Single incident costs (without DMARC) | Non-incident costs (without DMARC) |
Time lost to incident handling | Undelivered emails to customers, partners and vendors |
Business downtime | Time lost to diagnosing issues |
Immediate and long term reputational damage | Depleted and wasted marketing spend |
Regulatory fines from failed compliance | Poor open rates |
Regulations
Failure to comply with evolving regulations could cost your business. Global policies like Google and Yahoo’s bulk sender requirements and PCI DSS 4.0.1 have already reshaped email security standards. The European Union’s NIS2 and Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA) may follow suit.
Compliance might seem like a hassle, but the impact is undeniable. Google and Yahoo’s requirements, including DKIM, SPF, and DMARC, led to a 65% reduction in unauthenticated Gmail messages.
However, many domains only implement DMARC at the “p=none” level to keep emails flowing, leaving them vulnerable to impersonation attacks. Real protection requires a full inventory of email senders and authorization of legitimate systems.
DMARC reporting is essential for this. It provides:
- Sender visibility: See which IPs send on your behalf to spot unauthorized activity.
- Authentication insights: Monitor SPF/DKIM performance for reliable authentication.
- Failure analysis: Diagnose DMARC issues to resolve delivery problems and security threats quickly.
With DMARC done right, you can secure your domain and improve email reliability.
Make it easy with Red Sift OnDMARC
Red Sift OnDMARC simplifies DMARC compliance and reduces security risks by guiding businesses from “p=none” or “p=quarantine” to “p=reject” with confidence. We streamline the process of authorizing legitimate senders while blocking fraudulent emails. Before joining Red Sift, Antony adopted OnDMARC in his previous role for a 25-year-old, globally distributed company. Using OnDMARC was able to extensively improve their email security management, leading to the discovery of “legacy” assets, eliminating many unused domains, and blocking illegitimate senders.
Thanks to detailed reporting and forensics, OnDMARC provided Antony with visibility into email authentication attempts, helping detect and mitigate unauthorized activity early. This proactive protection has been instrumental in shielding customers from phishing attacks.
Looking to get started? Red Sift is ready to support organizations at every stage of DMARC implementation, from initial setup to refining policies, ensuring high-traffic domains maintain secure and authenticated email communication. Sign up for a free OnDMARC trial today.
