In the interest of improving global email security, prominent email providers, including Google and Yahoo!, are planning to enforce several long-standing technologies by February 2024. These changes primarily aim at combating the issues of email spam and junk mail worldwide. Any non-compliance to these changes could potentially result in your business emails failing to be delivered.
Key Facts to Understand
As a part of your everyday operations, your business sends out a variety of emails, including transactional messages, automated marketing emails, bulk broadcasts, and alerts & notifications. The domain name (@mycompany.com) that you use to send these emails should now be in compliance with the SPF, DKIM and DMARC standards. While these standards have been in place for years and might already have been adopted by your organization or email service provider, their use will soon be mandatory. Non-compliance could lead to leading email platforms rejecting your emailed messages.
Sender Policy Framework(SPF) authenticates the sender of an email. A SPF record, a DNS TXT record with a list of IP addresses authorized to send emails on your domain's behalf, allows ISPs to verify that an email is being sent from an authorized server. You can find more about SPF here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework
DomainKeys Identified Mail(DKIM) is an email authentication technique that recognizes falsified sender addresses in emails (email spoofing), a common tactic in phishing and spam emails. Learn more about DKIM here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys_Identified_Mail
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance(DMARC) is an email authentication protocol that protects email domain owners from unauthorized usage, also known as email spoofing. Its primary goal is to offer security against business email compromise attacks, phishing emails, email scams, and other cyber threat activities. For more information about DMARC, visit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMARC
The Next Steps
The required settings and changes to meet these standards can vary, depending on your specific email setup. In most instances, your email provider should be aware of these impending alterations and can guide you through the necessary actions you need to take to ensure compliance within your unique setup. It's important to note that these changes will impact not just your office email sending system, but also any other email services your business uses, including your website or third-party email automation platforms.
Here to Assist You
To better understand how these upcoming changes might affect your business and how you can smoothly transition into compliance, feel free to reach out to Webcraft. Our experienced team is here to help you navigate these changes effectively.