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DKIM vs. SPF Email Standards: Do I Need Them Both?

When it comes to email authentication standards, should you use DKIM, SPF, or both? We’re going to cover these terms, when you should use them, what they do—and how best to protect your email domains. Is it Either/Or—or Both? Should the battle really be SPF vs. DKIM? While not mandatory, it’s highly recommended to use both SPF and DKIM to protect your email domains from spoofing attacks and fraud...
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DKIM Guide: How to Set Up the Email Standard Step by Step

In this DKIM setup guide, we’ll walk you through the steps on how to set up DKIM correctly, test it, avoid common pitfalls, and fix common mistakes. In case you’re new to DKIM, or DomainKeys Identified Mail, we’ll start with a high-level overview before getting to the step-by-step instructions, but you can first look up your DKIM record here . What is DKIM? A Brief Introduction DKIM is a standard...
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What Is Whaling Phishing & How Does It Work?

“Whaling” phishing fraud attacks target the C-suite of a company which creates high risk of extremely sensitive, mission-critical data being stolen and exposed. Fortunately, protecting the organization from these attacks is possible. Whaling phishing is a type of phishing attack targeting larger, high-value targets, which is why it's called "Whaling." Attackers themselves often pretend to be C...
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The “i'’s” Have It: How BEC Scammers Validate New Targets with Blank Emails

Have you ever received a blank email from someone you don’t know? If you have, it may have been from a cybercriminal making sure your email account is legitimate prior to a Business Email Compromise (BEC) attack. Agari and PhishLabs define BEC as any response-based spear phishing attack involving the impersonation of a trusted party to trick victims into making an unauthorized financial...
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What Is Email Phishing? Protect Your Enterprise

Phishing emails can steal sensitive data and cost companies' their reputation. However, protecting a company from these scammers doesn't need to be difficult. What Is Email Phishing? Phishing is when an attacker mimics a trusted person or brand in an attempt to steal sensitive information, or gain a foothold inside a company network. While phishing emails are by far the most popular, these attacks...
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What is Email Spoofing & How to Stop Attackers from Spoofing Your Email Address

What is email spoofing, how does it work, and why is it so dangerous to your company? We’ll explain everything you need to proactively stop attackers from spoofing your email address. Email Spoofing: What Is It? Email spoofing is when a fraudster forges an email header’s ‘From’ address to make it appear as if it was sent by someone else, usually a known contact like a high-level executive or...
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DKIM for Email: What It Is, How It Works, and How to Add It

We'll cover what DKIM for email is, why your company needs it, how it works, how to set DKIM up, and additional ways to prevent email spoofing attacks. What is DKIM? First, let’s clarify what DKIM is in email. DomainKeys Identified Mail is a technique that uses your domain name to sign your emails with a digital “signature” so your customers know it’s really you sending those emails and that they...
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Preventing Phishing Attacks:  The Dangers of Two-Factor Authentication

Are you protecting your remote workers against an endless barrage of COVID-19 related phishing attacks by requiring 2-factor authentication (2FA) to log into employee email accounts? Smart move—just don't let it give you a false sense of security.
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How to Stop Phishing Message Voicemail Attacks

At Agari we often talk about the evolving nature of advanced email attacks and the identity deception tactics that go with them. These attacks bypass legacy controls and like a magician delighting a curious audience, they trick the human psyche by targeting core human emotions such as fear, anxiety and curiosity. Of course, the magic in this case comes with ill intent. A good example of a...
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Protecting our Clients from Email Spoofing: Our DMARC Journey

This post originally appeared on the Armadillo Blog and has been lightly edited for clarity. Most organisations have been successful in blocking malicious emails targeted at their employees, at least to some extent. Various on-premise and cloud providers exist to take care of anti-spam, anti-virus, reputation scores, and advanced features such as sandboxing of executables. As a service provider...
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M&As Put Your Company at Risk for BEC Losses and Data Breach Liability

Mergers and acquisitions can build your company's value overnight, but business email compromise (BEC) and data breaches can tear it down just as quickly. Too often, M&A announcements are followed by waves of BEC attacks against the companies involved, or by news that the target company was the victim of a data breach. To get the most value from a merger or acquisition, you need to know how to...
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Email Phishing Scam Continues to Target College Students

According to a public service announcement issued by the FBI, college students across the United States continue to be targeted in a common email phishing scam that lures students in with the promise of employment. It works like this: email Scammers advertise phony job opportunities on college employment websites or students receive emails on their student accounts recruiting them for fictitious...
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Security Professional Pain Points – and How to Solve Them

Ask any security professional what the number one pain point is within their organization, and chances are they’ll say ‘user behavior’…with ‘malware’ coming in as a very close second. And while these issues are very different on the surface, they do have one thing in common: both are often the cause of high-profile data breaches, largely in part to the increased use of spear phishing email...
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Don’t Let Your Customers Be Fooled By Cousin Domains

In the last five years, we’ve all become far too familiar with it – hackers spoofing a company’s domain and therefore tarnishing the brand, bad actors attempting to infect our computers with malware, and criminals sending millions of spam messages. As if this isn’t enough, now there is a whole group of people working to outsmart companies AND their customers by using cousin domains to fool...
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What is Identifier Alignment?

When you begin to work with DMARC, you realize just how important identifier alignment is. Identifier alignment forces the domains authenticated by SPF and DKIM to have a relationship to the "header From" domain. Header From Domain and the MailFrom domain are different? Yes, they are! Hearing these terms can confuse people. They sound like the same thing, but in reality they are not. The...
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What are the Differences Between DomainKeys (DK) and DKIM?

This is the second in a new ongoing series for us that gives you the tips and tricks you need for successful DMARC deployment . Read the previous tip here . DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is the successor to Yahoo DomainKeys. Both share similarities, however DKIM has the additional aspects of Cisco's Identified Internet Mail standard (IIM). The enhancements to this standard gives more security...
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DMARC is Transformational

The Benefits of Monitor Mode When a technology exists that can tell you if and when your domains are being spoofed (and by who), why would you not use it?! What is DMARC? DMARC was created to address some fundamental problems with existing email authentication technologies (SPF and DKIM). It provides feedback about your email authentication implementation and gives ISPs (Google, Yahoo!, Microsoft...