Email Security

Question 1

DMARC

Answer 1

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is an email authentication protocol that uses SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) to detect and prevent email spoofing. It allows domain owners to specify how email originating from their domain should be handled if it doesn’t align with SPF and DKIM records, and it provides reporting to senders about how their emails are being processed by receiving servers.

Question 2

SPF

Answer 2

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is an email security protocol that allows domain owners to specify which mail servers are permitted to send email on behalf of their domain. By checking the SPF record of incoming emails, receiving mail servers can detect and reject spoofed emails that do not originate from authorized servers, reducing email-based threats like phishing and spam.

Question 3

DKIM

Answer 3

DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) is an email authentication method that uses cryptographic signatures to verify the authenticity of an email message. It allows a sender to digitally sign an email, and the receiving server to check the signature against the sender’s public key in their domain’s DNS records, ensuring the email has not been tampered with and genuinely originates from the claimed domain.

Question 4

DNSSEC

Answer 4

DNSSEC (Domain Name System Security Extensions) is a suite of security extensions designed to add cryptographic signatures to existing DNS records. This ensures the authenticity and integrity of DNS data, protecting against threats like DNS cache poisoning and man-in-the-middle attacks, by allowing DNS resolvers to verify that the information they receive from a DNS server is authentic and hasn’t been modified.