How to Create and Publish a DMARC Record?

Why You Need to Add a DMARC Record to Your Domain

Email Authentication

DMARC works by joining SPF records and DKIM records to authenticate any email that is being sent from a specific domain.

DMARC acts as follows when an email is received: it first calls SPF that checks whether the sender of the email is legitimate, and then queries the DKIM that checks that the content of the email has not been modified during its delivery.

If both checks are passed, then the email is considered as original. This verification process helps to stop those who use domain to send fake emails and thus protects the reputation of your brand.

Protection Against Phishing and Spoofing

In phishing attacks, the sender pretends to be from familiar institutions so as to ‘trap’ the recipient into divulging personal details.

DMARC is important because if your domain does not have a DMARC record put in place, attackers can easily domain spoof your organization implying that emails that are actually fake are from your institution.

By implementing DMARC, it is possible to tell the receivers on how to handle messages that fail the authentication process; it can be discarded or quarantined.

This mostly eliminates the possibility of your domain being used in a phishing or spoofing kind of attack and thus guards your brand and customers.

Improved Email Deliverability

What many people may not know is the fact that DMARC actually improves email deliverability.

When you adopt DMARC, it informs the email services that the domain owner has embraced security of all communicating emails, thus increasing the chances of all your legitimate mails landing in the in-box instead of spam directory.

This is especially useful for organizations that apply the use of email in marketing and communicating with their clients as it can keep your messages from being blocked from delivering to the intended recipient’s inbox.

Reporting and Visibility

DMARC generates two types of reports: aggregate and forensic. Summary reports can be generated to show how successful email authentication was for the domain and can be used to watch for possible misuse of the domain.

Forensic logs provide granular details about failed emails in specific DMARC reports, which can occur when an email is sent from a compromised account, for example, aiding in a security breaches investigation.

These reports allow you to see the details of every person who is sending emails under your domains to the outside world, as well as flag any suspicious activity which you can take necessary action on to protect your brand.

Complying with Google and Yahoo’s Requirements

Some of the largest email providers, including Google and Yahoo, have over the recent past increased their security standards and now insist that any company, organization or individual involved in bulk emailing must adhere to DMARC.

Companies that heavily use these platforms to interact with customers may experience severe deliverability problems in case of inactivity with DMARC.

Messages failing DMARC check might be blocked and delivered to spam folders or may not be delivered at all by those providers thus diminishing your emails’ delivery rate.

By implementing DMARC you make sure that your messages have significantly higher chances to get delivered into the inbox of these major email platforms and stay connected with the audience.

Complying with PCI-DSS v4 Requirements

The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI-DSS) is an industry standard which seeks to enhance the security of sleeve payment card information.

As it stands, due to the recent adoption of PCI-DSS version 4 which rolls out in March next year, any company that deals with credit card data is mandated to adopt DMARC.

This new requirement demonstrates the growing trend in using emails, in that there is a need to safeguard against fraudsters as well as safeguard data.

From the financial organization’s point of view, the implementation of DMARC does not only protect email communication but also maintain compliance with these fundamental industry standards as well.

Non-compliance may lead to some penalties and more importantly loss of customer confidence.

How to Create a DMARC Record?

Use a DMARC Record Generation Tool

In order to apply DMARC, you have to generate the DMARC record. However, it is better to use a DMARC Record Generation Tool instead of creating DMARC records manually, as this is time consuming and might lead to some errors.

This tool makes it easy to do this and will also check to ensure that the DMARC record is well formatted.

Steps to Use a DMARC Record Generation Tool:

• Sign Up or Log In: If you don’t, then, you will need to register with your email address to the tool’s portal or, you can sign in with your Gmail/Office 365 account.

• Navigate to the DMARC Record Generator: Upon reaching this website, create an account and then log in so you can navigate to Analysis Tools and then you will find PowerToolbox and from that click on DMARC Record Generator. Using this tool below will help you to develop your DMARC record easily.

Define a DMARC Policy for Your Record

The next step involved in the DMARC process involves defining the DMARC policy, which in simple terms defines how you would like the recipient email system to respond to any email that has failed the DMARC check. The policy you choose will depend on your desired level of enforcement:

• “none”: As stated in this policy, no action will be taken if emails do not pass the DMARC check. It is utilized right from the beginning as DMARC implementation to record email traffic without affecting delivery.
• “quarantine”: The emails that did not pass the authentication by DMARC will end up in the recipient’s spam or junk folder. This policy is reasonable in the middle of the protective measure that is needed against emails without the complete rejection of the emails.
• “reject”: This is the most rigid policy which states that any email that does not pass the DMARC check does not reach the recipient’s mailbox. This policy is useful once you are sure that all the email settings are properly set because this has the best defense against spoofing and phishing.

How to Define the Policy:

In this step, input the enforcement level that you wish to employ for your DMARC policy Then, enter your preferred DMARC policy into the DMARC record generation tool and click on ‘Generate’.

Configure Optional DMARC Record Fields

DMARC records must include certain basic fields to be effective, there are other fields that can be added to the DMARC record if you wish to gain added benefits. These optional fields can provide additional functionality, such as reporting and alignment modes:

a. Aggregate Reporting (rua) Field

The rua field enables one to provide information on where you would wish to receive aggregated reports. These reports give the details of the DMARC validation done for the emails that you have flagged as originating from your domain.

This field should be used so that you can have a chance to observe how the domain is utilized and whether there’s a problem with email authentication at all.

b. Forensic Reporting (ruf) Field:

The ruf field directs incoming forensic reports, which contain information on the failure modes of authentications in detail. This is particularly helpful if in a case where there is an attempt towards security threats or email attacks in progress.

c.  DKIM/SPF Alignment Modes:

Alignment modes define to what extent DMARC enforces the ‘From’ domain and the domain inspected in the DKIM and SPF. You can choose between “relaxed” or “strict” alignment:

• Relaxed Alignment: The domains should share only the same Organizational domain (subdomains can be different).
• Strict Alignment: These domain names must be an exact match since certain domains will require substantial matching, which is not feasible with other domains. It was observed that when the policy is aligned strictly it will lead to better security but lesser emails will pass the DMARC test.

Recommendation:

Despite the fact that these fields are not obligatory, it is highly advisable to complete them for the proper work of DMARC. After that, define the above mentioned as optional fields and then finalize the DMARC record using the generation tool.

How to Publish DMARC Records?

Publishing a DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) record is a crucial step in securing your domain’s email communications.

A DMARC record allows you to set up policies for handling emails that fail authentication checks (such as SPF and DKIM), and to receive reports on potential misuse of your domain.

Below is a detailed guide on how to publish a DMARC record for your domain:

Prerequisites:

• Access to Your DNS Management Console: To perform the steps below, you should have administrative access to the DNS management console where your domain’s DNS records are hosted.
• Permission to Edit DNS Records: Check if you have the permission to change or to add records for your domain in the DNS server.

Step-by-Step Guide to Publish a DMARC Record:

Step 1: Access Your DNS Management Console

The first step is to get to the control panel of your DNS management . The steps that you have to take to perform DNS management will depend on the DNS hosting provider you use.

For example, although many hosting services have interfaces that are similar to Cloudflare, GoDaddy, BlueHost, or Amazon SES, they can have different designs.

However, the basic process typically involves:

• Gaining access to your account which is associated with your DNS hosting company.
• Getting to the ‘Domain’ or ‘DNS’ management part of the web site.
• Choosing the domain on which the organization will implement the DMARC record.

Step 2: Click on DNS Zone Editor or Similar Option

After getting in the DNS management section, try to locate the option in the form of a link or button which has edit or manage DNS records written on it. This might be labeled differently depending on the service provider, but common terms include:

• DNS Zone Editor
• Advanced DNS
• DNS Management

Step 3: Add a TXT Record for DMARC

In order to publish a DMARC record you must first define a new DNS record of the type TXT. This TXT record will also list the DMARC policy of your particular domain.

Steps to Add a TXT Record:

• On the DNS Zone Editor, find out the ‘Add New Record’ button.
• Next to the word ‘Record Type,’ choose ‘TXT’ – this stands for ‘Text’. TXT records are general for using definition or other textual information of policy and etc related to a domain.
• In the Name field it should be _dmarc. yourdomain. com (please replace the words yourdomain. com with your actual domain name that you typed while registering your domain name).

Note: It is possible that some DNS consoles will add your domain name for you so, if you are in doubt, you just type _dmarc.

• Currently copy and paste your DMARC record that you have been creating earlier in the TXT data or Value field. A basic DMARC record might look like this:

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:[email protected]; ruf=mailto:[email protected]; sp=none; adkim=r; aspf=r

• v=DMARC1: Indicates that this is a DMARC record.
• p=none: Policy for emails that fail DMARC checks (none, quarantine, or reject).
• rua=mailto
  @yourdomain.com: Email address for aggregate reports.
• ruf=mailto
  @yourdomain.com: Email address for forensic reports.
• sp=none: Policy for subdomains.
• adkim=r: Alignment mode for DKIM (relaxed or strict).
• aspf=r: Alignment mode for SPF (relaxed or strict).
• In the TTL field specify the TTL value that is the amount of time that is set for the Internet packets. This specifies the number of seconds that the record should be cached by the DNS server. Normally it is set to 3600 seconds which is equivalent to one hour.
• Save the record. Your DMARC record will then be propagated to your DNS zone and should begin enforcing once the TTL as stated is over.

Note: The procedure of adding TXT records might slightly differ depending on your DNS host provider.

For instance, on GoDaddy, you can manage DNS by going through the DNS Management tab, clicking on the ‘Add’ button, setting the record type as TXT and then inputting the necessary details.

Conclusion

It is important not to neglect your online presence in order to avoid exposing it to the various threats out there. From Certera you can get what you need to protect your Website, Email and any other digital communication and this is with the best SSL certificates, improved encryption and all the modern security technologies.