30 seconds to DMARC

With this 30-second summary, quickly understand what is DMARC all about and what you can do to protect your organization from common email threats.

What Is DMARC?

DMARC stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance.

DMARC functions are:

• verifying that incoming emails are actually sent from the domain they claim to be from,
• reporting on the incoming email and
• applying the DMARC action defined by the sender.

How does it work?

DMARC builds on two existing email authentication methods:

• SPF (Sender Policy Framework): Checks if the email comes from an authorized server.
• DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail): Uses cryptographic signatures to verify the sender’s identity.

... And then DMARC adds a layer of policy and reporting:

• Authentication: It checks whether SPF and DKIM pass and whether the sender’s domain aligns with the “From” address.
• Policy Enforcement: Domain owners can tell receiving servers what to do with unauthenticated emails—accept, quarantine, or reject.
• Reporting: DMARC sends reports back to domain owners about who is sending emails on their behalf and whether they pass authentication checks.

Why Is DMARC Important?

As you can see by the schema above, with the proper tool* to process your DMARC reports, you can:

• Prevent email fraud, especially spoofing (attackers using your email address)
• Protect brand reputation (attackers pretending to be from your organization to attack others)
• Improve email deliverability (less problems, better IP reputation)
• Gain visibility into email traffic (every IP and every Sender Service sending your email (or email on your behalf)

* Speaking about proper tools, have you tried Mailspike.io?