Benefits and Limitations with Common Methods of Barriers to Email Spoofing
Sender Policy Framework (SPF)
- Definition
- Sender Policy Framework (SPF) checks the IP addresses of incoming emails against a company’s Domain Name System (DNS).
- If sender addresses don’t meet DNS conditions, emails are rejected, keeping malicious emails from ever entering employees’ inboxes.
- Works at the SMTP level.
- Limitation
- SPF is limited to 10 lookups. Many companies have multiple cloud-based services that can send messages, causing companies to bump up against this restriction almost immediately.
- Records only apply to specific Return-Path domains and not those found in the ‘from’ address. This leaves a window for scammers to create messages that will authenticate, allowing scammers to spoof the visible “From” field.
- Example:
- From: Bank of America <billpay@billpay.bankofamerica.com>
- Return-Path: <recepcionfacturas@grupo-emsa.com.mx> Subject: Your eBill Due Date Is Approaching
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)
- Definition
- DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) acts as a second layer of protection after SPF.
- DKIM confirms sender domains and verifies that emails are sent from valid sources.
- DKIM assigns a public key to each sender’s DNS record and creates a private key for outgoing email. If the keys match in an email exchange, it means that the messages weren’t interfered with in transit.
- Limitation
- DKIM is famously challenging to implement. Perhaps for this reason, and the fact that a missing DKIM signature does not always mean a message is fraudulent, do if it is missing, the email will always get delivered.
- However, as with SPF, DKIM does not prevent a scammer from spoofing the visible ‘from’ field.
- Example:
- From: Billpay <billpay@billpay.bankofamerica.com>
- Return-Path: <tua02@tribunalesagrarios.gob.mx>
- Subject: Your eBill for Alex H. Lehocky
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC)
- Definition
- Teaches employees common security practices like, being wary of emails that seem extra urgent, paying close attention to sender addresses, never sharing passwords or clicking into a website they’ve never been to, and changing their passwords often.
- Phishing tests are a good way to assess your employees’ security knowledge and keep them on their toes.
- Limitation
- Training only goes so far-employees aren’t actively looking for phishing emails like security teams might be, and they don’t always abide by your company’s security regulations. Employees don’t recognize the nuance of every threat, so education can only be one step in a robust cybersecurity process.
- Phishing tests can help, but scammers are constantly developing new techniques and leveraging social engineering, making it tough to test for every possibility and all it takes is one lapse of concentration.
How to Successfully Prevent Email Spoofing
Email is now completely enmeshed with work, making spoofing prevention a baseline requirement in any organization. Commonly used strategies like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC have severe limitations, even when employed simultaneously. In fact, as more companies adopt those tactics, attackers launch more domain impersonation attacks that SPDF, DKIM, and DMARC cannot protect against.
Read our 3 part blog series: Understanding-DMARC: What’s Driving All the Hype?
Modern spoofing prevention requires a blended approach of human and machine collaboration. Wading through thousands of emails a day and picking up on new abnormalities is an impossible task for humans alone, but not for computers.
AI-powered anomaly detection tools analyze both user behavior patterns and email metadata, helping the algorithms and platform better identify and respond to new spoofing techniques.
To react to spoofed emails quickly and effectively, organizations must layer advanced mailbox anomaly detection on top of SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and training.
Learn more about Advanced Mailbox-level Anomaly Detection
Stop Spoofing With An Advanced Email Security Platform
IRONSCALES is a pioneer in the cybersecurity space, detecting email spoofing and other advanced threats better than any other platform on the market.
The IRONSCALES platform includes mailbox-level anomaly detection, antiphishing tools, and protection against business email compromise (BEC). And with intelligent automation, IRONSCALES can stop phishing emails before they even hit your employees’ inboxes.
