Is DMARC a Must-Have for SMBs?

All enterprises need secure emailing services to liaise with clients effectively and grow their business. But if you cannot trust the email in your inbox, business as usual becomes very difficult. Phishing emails are sent to business domains and email inboxes in thousands every day.

Clicking even one unverified email can seriously compromise your business as well as your clients. The result is loss in business, loss in company reputation, and maybe even legal liabilities. The simplest solution to avoid all these problems is to use a robust email authentication system that will only show you verified emails from legit sources.

In short, you need DMARC or the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance. Let’s look at what this email authentication protocol can do for your business email security:

What is DMARC?

DMARC is an email authentication standard that combines two previous protocols SPF and DKIM into a single protocol. The purpose here is to allow email administrators to create a comprehensive repository of IP addresses that are allowed to send emails via the company’s domain. This helps prevent spoofing and any such attempt is quickly discovered and shut down by the admin. DMARC also increases email deliverability via increasing domain authenticity. Further, domain admins that use DMARC can share domain authentication details with other DMARC users and allow for the prompt delivery of emails without landing them in the spam folder.

What are the Benefits of DMARC?

Improves Brand Reputation

DMARC increases the brand reputation of companies by keeping their domain off-limits to scammers. Spoofing is often used as a means to phish for clicks on emails and using DMARC can greatly reduce domain spoofing. This indirectly leads to a growth in domain ranking and brand reputation. As a result, other domain owners trust DMARC-compliant domains and can include these domains in their auto-delivery lists. Further, domain owners and clients can showcase the brand security measures taken by the company such as a DMARC-enabled tag or a BIMI logo, which makes recognizing legitimate emails easier. This greatly increases the brand reputation of the company as well as the chances of getting returns on email marketing campaigns.

Enhances Cyberthreat Awareness

DMARC enables domain owners to see what kinds of emails they are receiving. They can use this data to create their own repository of suspicious or blocked IPs. They can also share this data on their network and compile a list through multiple sources. Uploading this data to DMARC can then help them block out or otherwise monitor these IPs and domains. This can gradually build up cyber threat awareness within the organization as well as among any associated business. The automated aspect of DMARC’s functioning via its policy benchmark (i.e. p=none/quarantine/reject) enables customized domain accessibility and email management.

Increases Domain Security

The basic premise behind DMARC is versatility in controlling domain access. This grants domain owners a lot of security enhancement options as well. Owners can completely shut down their domain access to unauthorized IPs and blacklist such IPs/sources by only allowing authorized sources and IPs to send emails. They can also decide what to do with blacklisted IP emails and if they will appear in anyone’s inbox at all. This means businesses can have the chance to completely eliminate the possibility of getting phished. They can set up their domain with DMARC in such a way that suspicious IPs and their potential phishing emails do not appear in inboxes at all.

Increases Email Deliverability

Domain reputation increases as DMARC creates an email authentication trust among approved domains. So, while there is direct email delivery among recognized and trusted domains, your email deliverability also increases because of the strong reputation. Further, as DMARC incorporates upcoming protocols like BIMI, these will add to the SPF and DKIM protocols and create an even more robust email validation process. This not only prevents spoofing, but your emails won’t end up in spam just because they have the same words as suspicious phishing emails.

Should You Get DMARC for Your SMB?

DMARC combines critical mail transfer security protocols like SPF and DKIM and creates a comprehensive email authentication system. This also makes it a great way to enhance email deliverability while enhancing safety for your own employees and your clients. This two-way benefit makes it an essential part of all SMBs even if they do not actively use email marketing. Find out how to get DMARC on your domain servers from us now!

EmailAuth Suite is one of the world's best platform for Email Authentication and has been serving customers since the introduction of DMARC in 2012.