What You Need to Know
Authentication Defense
SPF, DKIM, and DMARC together provide strong protection against domain spoofing.
Header Forgery
Attackers manipulate the From, Reply-To, and other email headers to impersonate trusted senders.
Brand Protection
Preventing spoofing protects your domain's reputation and your contacts from fraud.
Protecting Against Email Spoofing
Implement SPF records to authorize legitimate sending servers
Enable DKIM signing on all outbound email
Deploy DMARC with a reject or quarantine policy
Train employees to recognize spoofed emails
Use email clients that display authentication status indicators
Monitor DMARC reports for unauthorized use of your domain
Enable multi-factor authentication on all email accounts
Frequently Asked Questions
How does email spoofing work?
The SMTP protocol does not inherently verify sender identity. Attackers exploit this by setting the From header to any address they choose. Without SPF, DKIM, and DMARC, receiving servers have no way to verify the claimed sender.
Can email spoofing be completely prevented?
While SPF, DKIM, and DMARC significantly reduce domain-level spoofing, display name spoofing (using a trusted name with a different address) is harder to prevent and requires user awareness.
What is the difference between spoofing and phishing?
Spoofing is the technique of forging the sender address. Phishing is the broader attack that uses spoofed emails (or other deceptive methods) to trick recipients into revealing sensitive information or taking harmful actions.
How do I know if my domain is being spoofed?
Set up DMARC with reporting enabled. The aggregate reports will show you all servers sending email using your domain, including unauthorized ones.