It’s undeniable that faking email headers is quite easy in today’s world of filters. Since the rise of email, we’ve constantly found ourselves questioning the legitimacy of emails arriving in our inbox. This article will shed light on email authentication and guide you on how to authenticate your own emails.

In the fight against spam, malware, and phishing attempts, email authentication stands as a crucial process for filtering out legitimate emails. With technological advancements, companies are increasingly prioritizing the security of their email identification processes.

Statistics reveal that approximately 4.8 billion inboxes now utilize email authentication through DMARC. This figure represents a significant 76 percent of the total number of email accounts globally, according to Radicati.

The widespread adoption of email authentication is evident. This article aims to provide you with a comprehensive understanding of the email authentication process for your business.

What Is Email Authentication?

Think of it as a modern solution for verifying the contents of your inbox. It ensures that emails are legitimate. If an email raises suspicions, the software will flag it to safeguard you, your employees, and your company’s privacy.

Emails that fail this authentication process are filtered, removed, and blocked from your lists. Numerous email marketing platforms such as Mailchimp, SendGrid, and HubSpot utilize email authentication processes to ensure customer satisfaction and maintain the quality of their services.

But why is validating your emails so crucial?

Forbes highlights that with 50% of consumers reusing credentials across multiple accounts, cybercrime related to automated account takeover is projected to escalate in the near future.

This is certainly alarming news.

Cybercriminals are constantly on the lookout for opportunities to compromise your data and steal your usernames, passwords, and other sensitive payment information. As marketers and business professionals, we dedicate significant effort to building email lists, tracking identities, and crafting effective campaigns.

Email authentication acts as a valuable tool, streamlining all email processes to achieve optimal results.

Simply put, the better we authenticate our emails, the better our engagement and conversion rates will be. Any factor that can impact email deliverability requires our attention.

How To Authenticate Your Emails?

Regularly monitoring your email’s security is paramount. Surprisingly, as per Entrepreneur, 32 percent of surveyed IT professionals never take steps to assess the security initiatives.

There’s no reason to neglect email authentication, especially with the availability of numerous options, including free email marketing software solutions to enhance your security measures.

• Maintain Consistency With Sender Addresses

Pay close attention to the sender’s ID. Sender ID verifies the email sender’s IP address and integrates Microsoft’s Caller ID for email alongside SPF. This effectively addresses the issue of email forging.

Additionally, it scrutinizes the email’s content, focusing on the sender server’s IP address and verifying its match with DNS records. This process relies on SPF for proper functionality (discussed further below).

• Implement SPF: A Key Email Authentication Method

SPF, also known as Sender Policy Framework, is an open, DNS-based email authentication system employed by major email providers like Google and Hotmail.

This framework enables sending domains and verifies sender addresses. It begins by checking the list of authorized sending hosts and determines whether their source email IP addresses are permitted to send emails to that specific domain.

To fully grasp its workings, it’s important to understand these two definitions:

Email messages contain two “from” addresses: the “envelope from” and the “header from.” The “envelope from” functions similarly to a return address, allowing mail servers to determine if an email needs to be returned or bounced. On the other hand, the “header from” is visible to all email users and displays the sender’s address in a recognizable format. During an SPF check, email providers verify the SPF record by examining the domain name in the envelope’s “from” address against the DNS records.

If the sending email’s IP address isn’t included in the SPF record, SPF authentication is triggered, and the message is flagged and redirected to the appropriate failure lists.

• Utilize DMARC Authentication

Domain Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) builds upon SPF and DKIM policies.

It handles email messages lacking SPF and DKIM authentication. Moreover, it incorporates additional features like reporting, identity alignment, and policy definition, simplifying the authentication process.

DMARC provides greater control over your email authentication system, effectively blocking spam and safeguarding your brand’s reputation.

• Configure DKIM Signatures

Domain Keys Identified Mail (DKIM) is an open email authentication system that employs public-key encryption to verify your email messages, ensuring their integrity.

This involves generating a hash using a private key and attaching a cryptographic signature to the message header. This signature aids in monitoring incoming messages using an algorithm associated with a specific DNS domain.

• Embrace BIMI

In essence, BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) is crucial for businesses as it empowers them to specify to inbox providers which logos they want displayed alongside their emails in the inboxes of customers and prospects.

Relying on inbox providers to display generic logos or the company’s initials is no longer effective in today’s digital landscape. This method necessitates the authentication of a brand’s email, preventing unauthorized copying of outgoing emails. It acts as an essential safeguard, deterring malicious actors from exploiting BIMI and eliminating potential confusion.

Email Authentication: Wrapping Up

Prioritizing the health and verification of your emails is paramount to propelling your business forward. Always remain vigilant and verify the authenticity of emails arriving in your inbox.