In 2022, the Securing Government Services team at the Central Digital and Data Office came across an interesting problem with SPF. The team found a small bug with how UK government domains’ administrators managed the Sender Policy Framework or SPF records. SPF is an email authentication protocol that ensures only emails sent from trusted and…
Digitization is both a boon and a bane. With the rapid advancements in the technological sphere, there has been a steep rise in spiteful activities. The same holds true for positive ones as well. On the other hand, one cannot ignore the key role played by emails, especially in the day-to-day work arena. Email is…
Starting the blog on a good note- the second quarter of 2023 celebrated a record low of only 34% of victims paying off to ransomware attackers. This decline is due to the propagation of cybersecurity practices, which encouraged companies to educate their employees on red signs and invest in adequate tools and software. Now, to…
Domain owners who care about email delivery and prevention from phishing attacks take no chances when it comes to the validation and correctness of their SPF records. One of the common elements causing issues in an SPF record is the use of the PTR mechanism due to its slow processing and unreliable nature. This guide…
With email communication reigning in the digital world, email-based attacks are at an all-time high! Gauging the magnitude and the far-reaching impact of these attacks, Google and Yahoo have revamped their email authentication protocols for companies that send more than 5000 emails per day. While DMARC has been an integral aspect of a robust cybersecurity…
There’s a constant online debate about which is better – SPF softfail or SPF hardfail. While the former is considered less secure, the latter has the risk of having even your genuine email conversations land in spam folders. This is because, at times, even genuine emails fail to pass spam filters and SPF authentication checks. …
An SPF record checker is a diagnostic tool that checks your SPF record to ensure it’s valid and free of syntactical and configurational errors. Let’s see how it checks if the SPF record is set up correctly and prevents phishing and spoofing attacks attempted in your business’ name. We are starting by discussing the basics. …
These days, hackers are getting highly sophisticated with their techniques which has resulted in a higher frequency of successful cyberattacks, including phishing and spoofing. SPF, DKIM, and DMARC are three email authentication protocols that avert hackers from sending fraudulent emails in the name of legitimate businesses. As per the FBI’s 2022-IC3 annual report, 300,497 incidents…
It can be a bit confusing to create an SPF record if it’s your first time. This guide on SPF record explanation talks about basic and advanced SPF syntaxes that will help you generate an error-free and properly configured record for your domain. SPF Record Basic Syntax Here SPF record is explained in two categories;…
SPF records for a domain can specify all the IP addresses allowed to send emails on behalf of your company. They work to prevent spoofing and phishing attacks by instructing recipients’ mailboxes to mark unauthorized emails as spam or reject their entries. Before understanding how SPF records work, let’s see what they look like. Here’s…
