New analysis from Red Sift of the 100 largest pharma companies shows nearly half of the sector is still open to domain spoofing. Only 51% of companies are at DMARC enforcement (p=reject)—the control that stops spoofed email at the door. Another 13% sit at p=quarantine, which offers limited filtering but does not equal enforcement. The remainder include 23% at p=none and 13% with no DMARC policy, leaving them fully open to spoofing attempts.
Pharma is a high‑trust, high‑stakes target. Patients and HCPs expect legitimate messages about therapies, trials, refills, and safety alerts. Attackers are using AI to produce convincing, brand-matched phishing at scale, from fake trial‑schedule updates to invoice and shipment fraud. A single successful spoof can erode patient trust, disrupt supply chains, and invite regulatory scrutiny.
The email ecosystem around pharma brands is vast with PSPs, CROs/CMOs, specialty pharmacies, agencies, clinical platforms, and finance systems all send on behalf of the brand. Teams often park at p=none out of fear of breaking essential communications, and unactionable DMARC XML reports make it hard to move forward. Even those who progress to p=quarantine do not ensure full outbound protection for organizations and their customers.
“Anything short of a reject-level DMARC policy leaves organizations exposed to bad actors intent on causing harm. Gartner’s latest email security strategy urges cybersecurity leaders to implement safeguards now to protect domains from increasingly sophisticated external threats. Attackers are already leveraging inexpensive and highly effective tools to bypass traditional defenses and exploit social engineering tactics”.
– Rahul Powar, CEO Red Sift
While 49% of Big Pharma organizations wait to implement enforcement, the real impact is being felt by the customer. Imagine the likely scenario of automated prescription service for the elderly being compromised by a bad actor.
Imagine the following scenario: An email is sent out referring to an error in a monthly prescription service branded from a Big Pharma lookalike email. The user opens the email, worried about the loss of a vital service, with the bad actor prompting the user to re-enter key sensitive details via a phishing link. The attack is now complete. The user’s bank details or sensitive information is compromised leading to unimaginable harm. The company’s reputation hangs in the balance as news reporters discuss the organization’s failure to protect their customers. Damage done.
This signal point of failure could have been prevented, through a strict DMARC enforcement policy that blocked all illegitimate mail from reaching the end user. A small budget decision instead led to thousands, if not millions in damages (depending on the breach and scale). The threat is clear—yet many Big Pharma still take the risk.
Choose to stay secure today and find out how Red Sift is ready to support you.
