Business info issue 156

EasyDMARC, the cloud-native email security provider, is warning businesses to prepare for new email authentication rules being introduced by Google and Yahoo, following research highlighting widespread ignorance of the changes. Announced in February as part of a broader initiative to bolster trust in email communications, the mandate requires ‘bulk senders’ sending at least 5,000 emails in a 24-hour period to implement the DMARC authentication protocol to reduce the risk of phishing and spoofing attacks. DMARC uses SPF and DKIM to help verify that an email sender is legitimate, automatically rejecting, quarantining or reporting emails that fail checks. Already, Google and Yahoo are temporarily rejecting non-compliant emails ahead of enforcement ‘no Signed, sealed and quarantined? earlier than June 2024’. In a survey of 1,000 IT decisionmakers across the US, UK, Europe and Oceania, only 14% of survey respondents claim to be ‘very familiar’ with email authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM and DMARC, with a further 33% describing themselves as ‘somewhat familiar’. Three in 10 (30%) have heard of the measures but are not familiar with them, and almost a quarter (23%) are not familiar with them at all. Just 37% of organisations have installed the DMARC security standard and only 29% of respondents are aware of the changes to email authentication being implemented by Google and Yahoo. Plans for implementation When asked about strategies for implementing email authentication, excluding those who had already adopted it or had no plans to implement it, 51% plan to rely on their IT provider or a consultancy to implement the DMARC protocol. An additional 15% plan to use a specialist service to handle the technical aspects of implementation. This means that two-thirds of businesses, when considering implementation, would outsource it, with only 34% planning to manage and implement the required domain changes internally. Four out of 10 IT decision-makers cite complexity of implementation as a major barrier to adoption, which might explain why 22% say that not even a decline in email deliverability in the months following the DMARC changes will be enough to persuade their organisation to implement email authentication. https://easydmarc.com/ Businesses unprepared for email authentication rules, warns EasyDMARC Valimail, a DMARC vendor and provider of automated email authentication and anti-phishing solutions, recently hosted a roundtable with Google and Yahoo to discuss the newly implemented bulk sender requirements (https://www.valimail.com/blog/roundtable-with-google-yahoo-recap/) businessinfomag.uk magazine 20 EMAIL Automated DMARC compliance any surprises as your business continually changes. With the new rules coming into play, doing that check now is doubly important, so that you can catch issues before they become more serious and negatively impact your business. “An ounce of prevention now will prevent future problems as these new requirements become fully enforced over the next several months.” Valimail offers a range of tools and guidance to help senders of all sizes achieve compliance with new email sender authentication guidelines, including Valimail Align. Launched earlier this year, Valimail Align streamlines the path towards DMARC compliance for companies of all sizes. Its advanced, patented automation suite enables users to achieve SPF Participants pointed out that DMARC compliance is not just a technical issue but a critical business one, affecting everything from operational efficiency to customer relationships. Valimail CTO Seth Blank said: “Inbox providers will soon begin to reject email that fails to meet their new sender requirements. While marketing emails have been getting most of the focus, any organisation likely has multiple emails that also need to reach compliance, including payroll, billing and invoicing, shipping notifications, password resets and contract updates. “Like an annual physical at the doctor, it’s important to regularly examine the health and status of your entire email infrastructure, to make sure you don’t have and DKIM alignment to meet the delivery requirements set by Google, Yahoo and other email service providers, in days, not months. Key features include: • Streamlined compliance reporting: Rapid assessment of compliance across all sending services to ensure emails don’t end up being blocked; • Automated configuration: Guided workflows to authorise all senders with a single click, eliminating the need for manual decoding of DMARC reports, IP address lookups or DNS change management; and • Intelligent task lists: Step-bystep instructions to help configure or troubleshoot alignment issues for lightning-fast compliance with authentication requirements. HAVE pics

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