5 Key Email Authentication Protocols You Should Know

Email fraud is a big problem for businesses. It can damage your reputation and harm your recipients. Plus, many customers might mistake your promotional emails for spam or phishing attempts, which can lead to lower conversion rates.

Fortunately, you can implement email authentication protocols to prove that emails come from your business. This way, you can reduce phishing attacks, spam, and email spoofing. Plus, an official business email enables you to establish credibility and reinforce your brand.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at why email authentication protocols are important. Then, we’ll discuss five of the most common protocols and show you why you should use an official business email. Let’s get started!

What Is an Email Authentication Protocol? (And Why They’re Important)

Email authentication protocols help reduce harmful and fraudulent emails. They verify that emails come from who they say they do, minimizing the risk of forgeries.

In 2022, nearly 49 percent of emails were identified as spam. Therefore, it’s important to use email authentication protocols with technical standards like SPF and DKIM.

The basic protocol used to send emails is SMTP, but this doesn’t include any email sender authentication. Therefore, multiple methods (like the ones we’ll discuss in this post) were introduced to make mailboxes more secure.

Email authentication protocols can reduce email spam, email spoofing, and phishing attacks. However, utilizing these standards also generates trust and confidence in recipients since the sender’s identity has been verified.

This makes email authentication protocols very important for businesses and organizations. It helps you appear more credible and professional in the eyes of your customers, which can improve email deliverability.

5 Key Email Authentication Protocols You Should Know

Now that you know why it’s important to use email authentication methods, let’s take a look at five of the key standards that you should know about.

1. SPF

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is the standard email authentication method that prevents your messages from being delivered to the recipient’s spam folder. It protects your email domain against email spoofing since it specifies the mail servers that are allowed to send messages from your domain.

SPF works in conjunction with the receiving mail server which verifies that messages came from authorized servers. If an unauthorized server sends an email using your domain, the message won’t pass SPF authentication.

However, it isn’t recommended to rely on SPF authentication alone. Instead, it’s best to pair it with other email authentication methods like DKIM and DMARC.

This is because SPF isn’t successful at refuting phishing attacks as it authenticates the domain from a message’s Return-Path (rather than the From: address that humans see).

As such, attackers can set up their own domains with an SPF record that authenticates the domain in the Return-Path. This enables them to send malicious emails with a company’s domain showing in the From: field (which humans will look at and deem safe).

Therefore, this message would pass SPF authentication because of the domain used in the Return-Path (which users are unlikely to pay attention to).

2. DKIM

The next email authentication method to improve security is DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail). This can protect your domain against spoofing. Plus, it can improve email deliverability and prevent your email message from being flagged as spam by mail servers.

DKIM uses public key cryptography to authenticate individual emails, creating a digital signature. Your mail server adds an encrypted hash of the email which is validated by the receiving server using a public key stored in the domain name system (DNS).

This ensures that the content hasn’t been modified during transit and verifies that the email came from your organization. However, while DKIM authentication verifies and encrypts emails, there are some limitations.

For example, it still doesn’t address the issue with the From: field, which means that phishing emails are still possible. In this instance, the domain used to sign a message with DKIM can be completely different from the domain in the From: field.

3. DMARC

DMARC, which stands for Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance, expands on SPF and DKIM by enforcing these email authentication protocols. Plus, it tells the receiving email servers what to do when an email fails authentication.

For instance, you can set up a DMARC policy to instruct mail servers to quarantine emails that fail SPF and DKIM, reject emails, or deliver them. Additionally, a DMARC record can send reports to domain administrators about emails that are failing authentication methods.

As such, DMARC fixes the issue with the From: field. It makes sure the domain that’s visible here has been authenticated by SPF and DKIM.

However, there are a small number of messages that may fail authentication after being forwarded through IP addresses that are no longer on an SPF whitelist. Alternatively, changes to the email content can invalidate the encryption added by DKIM.

4. BIMI

BIMI (Brand Indicators for Message Identification) enables you to display your brand logo alongside authenticated emails. This can make your business appear more credible and authentic, which may increase trust with recipients.

Your brand’s logo will replace the user photo or initials that some email clients (like Gmail) show alongside the sender’s name. However, BIMI is certainly not an email authentication protocol to use alone.

While the visual confirmation is great, technically anyone could upload your logo to trick the recipient. Therefore, you’ll still require underlying authentication methods like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC.

5. ARC

The ARC (Authenticated Received Chain) protocol addresses the shortcomings of DMARC by improving the security of forwarded messages. In this instance, the mail server can see every entity that’s handled the message previously and view the authentication status at each point.

As such, ARC makes it possible to verify email authentication even when messages are forwarded many times (such as mailing lists). However, it still has to be used alongside authentication methods like SPF and DKIM.

Why You Should Use Official Business Emails for Your Website

Although you can send emails to customers using freemail accounts, it’s a good idea to set up an official business email that matches your website domain name.

Not only is this important for branding purposes, but it also makes email messages look more professional. This can improve email deliverability and increase confidence in recipients.

Additionally, when you have your own email address, you can often access more security features and ensure that your messages use up-to-date email authentication methods.

SirsteveHQ offers a variety of ways to set up a custom email domain for your website. You can either use a free cPanel email solution included with our web hosting packages or if you plan to use email extensively, we recommend an email hosting plan.

If you choose a web hosting package (some of which include free domains and free emails). You’ll also get unlimited storage, a free SSL certificate, and free website caching with all plans.

Then, you can log into your SirsteveHQ account and navigate to the cPanel to set up your email account:

Here, you can create a unique email address that reflects your website name. Simply complete all the requested fields and hit the Create button. The downside is the experience and features are more basic and trimmed down vs. one of our email hosting plans.

Conclusion

Email authentication methods enable you to boost security and inspire confidence in your customers. By verifying your email address, you can boost deliverability and minimize email fraud, spam, and spoofing attempts.

To recap, here are five email authentication protocols you should know:

1. SPF: Verifies that messages sent from IPs and servers are authorized by the domain owner.
2. DKIM: Adds digital signatures to messages that verify a sender’s identity.
3. DMARC: Enforces SPF and DKIM authentication and provides delivery status details.
4. BIMI: Enables you to display brand logos in your customers’ inboxes.
5. ARC: Improves the security of email forwarding.

Do you have any questions about which email authentication protocol to use? Let us know in the comments below!