DMARC Analyzer - Policies

This article contains information on the three DMARC policies—None, Quarantine, and Reject—explaining their functions, benefits, and how they protect domains from phishing, spoofing, and unauthorized email use.

There are three DMARC policies you can choose if an email fails the DMARC checks. These options are:

• • None
  • Quarantine
  • Reject.

Monitor policy: p=none

With a None policy, you do not want the email receiver to do anything with the emails. The email goes into the inbox of the receiver and you can use this data from the DMARC reports to start analyzing who is sending emails on your behalf. After analysis, you can go to the next level, Quarantine.

Quarantine policy: p=quarantine

With a Quarantine policy, you tell the email receivers to put these emails in special ‘quarantine’ folders like the junk/spam folder. You still analyze all the data and check who is sending emails on behalf of your domain and if they are allowed to.

Reject policy: p=reject

With a Reject policy, you ask the email receivers to reject all emails who fail the DMARC check. All these emails will bounce and will not end up in any folder of the receiver. With this policy all your email is secure but be aware that everything should be in place otherwise you will also block emails that are sent using your domain but from sources you have not safe-listed. For example; if you use third party senders like CRM systems or Email Service Providers and you did not give them permission to send on your behalf, all their emails will bounce.

The benefits of using DMARC include:

• • Leveraging the existing email authentication techniques: SPF and DKIM. 
  • Adding a vital reporting function. For example, if a domain owner publishes a DMARC record into their DNS record, they gain an insight into who is sending messages on behalf of their domain. This exposes detailed information about the email channel and a domain owner gains control over the messages sent on their behalf.
  • Protecting domains against abuse, in phishing or spoofing attacks. 

As a domain owner, it is vital to ensure that customers and suppliers only receive emails from trusted sources that are permitted to send emails. Enabling DMARC reassures email receivers that an email is legitimate and originating from your domain.