Email Security Standards

What is SPF?

Sebder Policy Framework (SPF), or Sender ID, is an email authentication standard. The goal is to make it easy for an email sender to indicate which emails really came from the domains under its control. Emails that pass SPF authentication are considered verified; messages that do not pass SPF may be considered spoofs.

Email senders of all sizes use SPF and DKIM to help authenticate their outbound messages. email receivers use SPF and DKIM to authenticate inbound messages. When used together with a reputation system that provides a whitelisting function, SPF and DKIM are sufficient to guarantee the delivery of legitimate email.

On a technical level, SPF is a method of IP-based authentication: a domain uses SPF to describe the IP addresses of mail servers that are authorized to send mail from that domain. By contrast, DKIM is a method of cryptographic signing: a domain signs every message it sends with a signature that appears in the headers. Both methods can be used in parallel to provide maximum authentication.

The standard was first proposed by Wong Meng Weng in 2003 and was subsequently published as RFC4408 by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF). It is the leading emal authentication standard in use today. At present, approximately one third of legitimate email traffic is covered by SPF.

What is DKIM?

DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is signature/crypto-based authentication technology that enables your organisation to provide and prove the authenticity of a message.

Initially derived from Yahoo's DomainKeys ad Cisco's Internet Identified Mail email authentication specifications, DKIM was developed following a long collaborative effort with industry players like, Yahoo!, Google, Paypal, AOL, eBay and many others. In 2007, DKIM was recognized as the Internet Official Protocol Standard (RFC 4871) by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF).

How can DKIM help your business?

Protect your reputation
  • Reduce phishing and email fraud by ensuring the authenticity of your messages.
Restore Trust
  • The crypto-based authentication technology makes it possible to detect any alteration in the content of the authenticated messages.
Deliver emails
  • Messages from known good senders can be delivered without spam scanning, reducing load and minimizing false positives.

Why should you implement DKIM NOW?

Imagine a secure communication environment that will enable your business to grow with peace of mind. DKIM will help your business achieve efficiency by reducing phishing and Denial-Of-Service attacks as well as other issues like viruses and spam that originate gtom the lack of authentication. The signature/crypto-based authentication technology ensures that your brand name is protected against email fraud with a preventive solution whilst giving you a competitive edge.