#email authentication check

[powerdmarc]

How To Stop Email Spoofing From Affecting Your Company

A lot of individuals and company owners often ask how they can put a stop to email spoofing attacks – bot as the prospective recipient and as the domain the sender is impersonating. Maybe you are also a victim to cyberbullies and suddenly got an influx of undeliverable notifications in your email inbox.  If this is the case, then it's likely that your email address is being spoofed.

So how do you put a stop to be a victim of domain or email spoofing and can you prevent it from happening again?

Most of the times villains use spoofing to as a cyber-attack.  They impersonate a domain in an attempt to draw in and cheat individuals. The reason they do it is obvious. If you are familiar with the sender of the message or you know the domain source, then it is like that you will cooperate with it. It is all about security and trust. Hackers tend to slip past the Managed security service providers (MSSPs) and take advantage of your vulnerability.  At present spoofing is associated with spear-phishing and phishing attacks, spam campaigns, as well as social engineering cases.

When you receive an email that’s from the bank, the IT Department, or your higher-ups at work, you probably don’t think twice before doing what the email tells you to do. Maybe you don’t even think about it when the email asks you to login to you account here, or enter personal information there, or just click on a link or attachment. What you just did there is the single biggest security flaw in any company. By complying blindly to email prompts, employees have made phishing attacks the easiest and most lucrative method of cyberattack by far. It’s also why phishing has been involved in 90% of data breaches in recent years.

When a business or individual becomes the victim of phishing, it can damage your company in two ways.  First, by exploiting your domain, brand, and company name to commit fraud and scams through email. Cybercriminals use your domain name in their email to trick users into thinking you sent it, and use this to their advantage. This is called domain spoofing and is one of the leading causes of email phishing attacks.

Secondly, they flooding people’s inboxes full of unwanted and oftentimes malicious email. The process of sending an email is based on the SMTP protocol.  The key purpose of an SMTP is not to look be concerned about where the message comes from, but just to deliver the message. While this makes corporate communications quick and easy, it does the same with phishing emails.

But email isn’t an entirely unsecured network. The three most popular standards used to authenticate email are DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Confirmation) (DKIM DomainKeys Identified Mail), and SPF (Sender Policy Framework). They enable email receiving servers to identify genuine emails from your domain and weed out those that don’t have the necessary authentication. These mechanisms can help you to put a stop to email spoofing and protect your domain from hackers.

SPF uses IP addresses to authenticate email. It creates a list of approved IP addresses that your domain can send emails from. When the IP address of the sender does not correspond to one already on the list, the email will be blocked by the email provider.

DKIM, on the other hand, uses a private encrypted signature to verify the email and confirms that the email has not been changed after it left the initial sender. The receiving server can validate the email using a public encryption key. If it finds that the email has been modified in any way, it fails authentication.

Finally, DMARC employs both DKIM and SPF to validate the email. If it fails either SPF or DKIM, the receiving server sends a report to the domain owner. The owner can then specify how they want the server to deal with the unauthenticated email. DMARC characterises failed email with three settings: reject, quarantine, and none. These determine if the email gets outright rejected by the server, goes to the spam folder or continues to the inbox.

Avoiding bad email can be a real challenge, especially when we’re always receiving a constant stream of them everyday. No matter how careful you are, you’re bound to slip up eventually. Which makes email security an even more pressing issue. That’s why you need professionals on the job, helping you secure your domain and keep inboxes around the world safe, protected, and free from phishing.

About Us: PowerDMARC is an email analytics software platform that offers All-In-1 solution for securing email and domain infrastructure. Being an affiliate of Global Cyber Alliance, the company strives to ensure individuals and businesses are safe against phishing and email compromise. With our unique anti-spoofing solution and email authentication tool, we have helped several companies in safeguarding their outgoing mail flow. Our tool allows customers to effortlessly configure the DMARC, DKIM, and SPF records for authentic domains and email services. The tool is designed at assisting companies to take security measures promptly to guarantee more vigorous email security. For more information visit https://powerdmarc.com/.

[powerdmarc]

DMARC Monitoring Benefits

DMARC, Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance is an effective email authentication system that reduces the risk of spoofing, phishing and cyber-attacks. This system prevents unauthorized use, protecting recipients of emails while protecting domains. This improves brand credibility and recognition. DMARC monitoring systems offer a complete range of welcome benefits.

The first benefit you will find when you introduce DMARC to your business systems is the fantastic reporting feature it provides. The reporting offered by the system can provide valuable insight into who is sending emails from your domain, how many emails are sent by each of the sources and what percentage are legal and authenticated. You will be able to identify who is sending unauthorized emails and the authentication method that they broke.

The second benefit of DMARC monitoring is that it provides full control over the emails being sent from your domain, whether legal or not. Anyone abusing your domain will be identified quickly through the reporting feature. Reporting does include how many emails are sent from your domain, so you can quickly notice an increase in volumes and quickly identify if it was sent from a legal or illegal source, which can reduce the risk of a spoofing attack.

The third benefit of DMARC monitoring is the outstanding security that it provides dealing with phishing, spoofed messages, cyber-attacks and spam. Without an effective email authentication system in place, companies have very little control when it comes to their domains and preventing mimics, which can damage their credibility and trust. With the system in place you can instruct the email receiver to reject any emails that are sent from an address that doesn't meet your specific DMARC check. In doing so you don't only protect your own business, but you also protect your email recipients, providing them with added peace of mind when receiving emails from your business.

Visibility is another of the amazing benefits provided by DMARC It enables access to the Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI). An email standard being adopted by most of the email providers. Yahoo and Gmail both support BIMI, which ensures you stand out in your recipient's inbox displaying your company logo next to your message. This instantly provides brand recognition and improves credibility, helping clients trust your brand and open your emails with one hundred percent confidence.

In addition to this, DMARC will prioritize your emails by having a strong authentication in place you can speed up the process in which an email is received by its receiving center. This means using DMARC with BIMI improves the deliverability of your emails and your recipients will be able to trust the message, being more willing to open and read it. 

Reporting of DMARC is offered in XML files, which can sometimes be a little difficult to understand, which is why you want to use an effective system that has a proven track record. You want the best experience at the best price with the most valuable after-sales services and support.

You are going to want to review the DMARC providers to identify which one will provide you with the best service and analysis, helping you decipher your reports with ease, quickly identify problem areas and ensure that your domain and emails remain safe moving forward.

Do your research, read up on reviews and choose a system that provides you with a trial to ensure it works for your systems and customers for the future.

About Us: PowerDMARC is a security specialist that provides email authorization systems to protect domains against spoofing, phishing and cyber-attacks. This is a well-established company that offers DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance) to companies helping them with email verification technology which is simple, safe and effective. This fully automated system offers excellent email security complete with a fifteen-day trial period for additional peace of mind. PowerDMARC offers excellent after-sales support, managed services and outstanding reporting with free migration, custom plans and affordable pricing. To find out more, visit https://powerdmarc.com

[powerdmarc]

Phishing – What is it and what do you need to know?

Phishing is a cyber attack that steals data. The data stolen usually includes log in information and in some cases, credit card information. Phishing is accomplished when the hacker gets a victim to open an email, text or instant message. The victim is tricked into clicking a link which installs malware on their computer. Once the malware is installed, the system freezes and sensitive information is revealed.

Being a victim of a phishing attack can be devastating for individuals and companies. This can result in purchases using your card without permission to stealing your money to stealing your online identify (identity theft). Phishing is often used to gain access to government and corporate networks, being part of a much larger attack. This is often achieved through employees who open emails without knowing any better, distributing the malware within a small and closed environment. Companies that are victims of phishing can lose large sums of money, their reputation can be tarnished and they can lose their consumers trust as a result.

To fully understand phishing, a good example would be receiving an email advising your password is expiring and you need to renew within twenty four hours by clicking on the link provided. Email phishing is purely a numbers game. The attacker will literally send out thousands of email messages and as a result they can secure a large amount of private information and a good amount of money in the process, even if only a handful of the victims that received the email clicked on the link.

Phishing messages are designed paying close attention to detail ensuring that they imitate real emails. They will use the same fonts, logos and even signatures, ensuring their email looks genuine. The email often pushes a user into acting, making it feel as a sense of urgency. The only difference is that in the majority of cases, these emails will have a mistake in the spelling of their domain name.

What many people don't realize is that there is more than one type of phishing attack that you can be victim to, the second attack is called spear phishing and this type of attack targets a particular person or company. It doesn't act as a way to attack random victims, but has a person or business in mind. This type of attack is carried out through careful research and evidence. The hacker will pose as someone of importance such as a manager, supervisor or owner and provide detailed instructions. This could be a password protected document which mimics a stolen document, such as an invoice. Once the link is clicked or the document is opened, the malware is released.

There are a number of ways to reduce the risk of a phishing attack and excellent security is key, such as DMARC, which is a Domain-based Authentication Reporting and Conformance system. Be vigilant, know what to look for and identify small errors. If you are unsure, don't open the email, attachment or click on any links.

Two factor authentication is an effective way to reduce the risk of phishing attacks, requiring extra verification when accessing sensitive applications. Password management is a must along with email security to reduce the risk of attack and give companies peace of mind when it comes to their email requirements.

Don't fall victim to phishing, know what to expect and be prepared to reduce your risk in the long run.

About Us: PowerDMARC is a security specialist that provides email authorization systems to protect domains against spoofing, phishing and cyber attacks. This is a well established company that offers DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance) to companies helping them with email verification technology which is simple, safe and effective. This fully automated system offers excellent email security complete with a fifteen day trial period for additional peace of mind. PowerDMARC offers excellent after sales support, managed services and outstanding reporting with free migration, custom plans and affordable pricing. To find out more, visit https://powerdmarc.com