In email marketing, security is essential. It largely depends on the good health of addresses and domain names you use to send your communications. No one wants to be robbed of their identity and find themselves on a blacklist, because the consequences are disastrous, both in terms of deliverability, of reputation as of King. Here are the essential records and protocols to protect your emails.
SPF record
What is SPF record?
Record SPF is a process for authentication of emails. Its objective is to prevent the sender from a message to make its identity usurp during the delivery of the email in the event of possible phishing or spam attempts.
Thus, hackers cannot use your domain name to send their fraudulent communications, and your recipient’s messaging server is able to check that the message comes from an authenticated IP address.
How to configure SPF record?
1) Determine the list of areas you want to use for your email sending.
2) Determine what IP addresses used for your shipments are.
3) Create a SPF (example: “v=spf1 ip4:1.2.3.4 –all”).
4) Publish your SPF in Domain Name System (DNS) for your sending areas D ‘Emails so that your recipient’s messaging servers can check your SPF.
DMARC
What is DMARC?
DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) is an authentication, policy and policy protocol email report. It aims to fight against phishing and spam by authenticating email sender. For this, it is based in particular on the SPF protocol, as well as on the domain name system (DNS).
How to configure a DMARC?
1) Add a new TXT DNS record.
2) Return the desired DNS record, it will start with v = dmarc1.
Here are some examples :
- If you want the email to be treated by your recipients as it would be without the DMARC validation:
v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:example@example.com; - If you want the email to be accepted by your recipients, but placed in a file other than the reception box:
v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:example@example.com; - If you want email not authenticated by your organization to be rejected by your recipients:
v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:example@example.com;
3)Your record is authorized and effective.
MX
What is MX?
MX record (MX for “Exchange email”) is a type of DNS record allowing the owner of a domain name to manage emails in a domain. It includes some information placed in different fields, such as the name of the domain, the time validity of information, the type of network, the type of MX record, the priority of the messaging server, as well as the name of the messaging server.
How to configure MX record?
1) Create a new MX record (example: “0 mail.example.com”).
2) Your record is authorized and effective.
The case of blacklisted emails
If your DNS records are poorly configured, your domain or IP address may be used by pirates for phishing or spam operations. In this case, your domain or IP address may well land on one or more black list (s).
If this happens, you must start by identifying the reason why you have been placed on a blacklist, correct the origin of this error, then ensure that your domain or IP address is deleted from this same list. The best to avoid this problem is to check regularly that you are not on any of these lists.
As you can see, these different protocols are extremely important to the health of a business and its email shipments. To have them checked and provide a solution in the event of a problem, there are different online tools, such as: DNS Spy, DNS Watch, Intro DNS or even MXTOOLBOX.
