Larkin Ryder, Slack’s Chief Security Officer recently quoted “Email is an open front door to security threats to an organization. $12 billion losses are caused by business email scams and 90% of data breaches are from phishing”. As scary as the above email security statistics sound, we cannot deny the fact that we are highly reliant on emails as the channel of communication, for both personal and official purposes. 

Currently, the global email users are 3.9 billion, and by 2024, the number is set to grow to up to 4.48 billion users! On the contrary, hackers are bringing forth sophisticated methods to launch cyber-attacks which are further resulting in the growth of email security breaches every year. In a recent advisory issued by CERT-In, malicious actors still have 2 million individuals/citizens’ email addresses. 

This is why email security is important and is observed as one of the most crucial concerns of this year. It is high time that organizations must start securing their email domains not only from BEC attacks but also, from email spoofing attempts. Organizations should primarily implement email authentication protocols to safeguard their and customers’ data. Let’s proceed further to learn about the best email security practices. 

Email Authentication Protocols: Security Against Unauthorized Emails

Hackers don’t need rocket science to launch email-based attacks. The most common weapon they use for these attacks is email spoofing. Hackers spoof email accounts to send fraud and malicious emails on behalf of victims. Or even ask your contacts to wire money to a fake account by using the spoofed email address.

Therefore, to stop such email-based crimes, it is important to secure outbound emails so that recipients of emails are not duped by spoofed email addresses. There are three main email authentication protocols that every organization must implement for the email security of their domain: 

• DMARC:

DMARC or Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance is an email authentication protocol that is designed to secure email domains from unauthorized usage.

The purpose of this protocol is to secure a domain from being misused in BEC attacks, phishing emails, email scams, etc. Once the DMARC DNS entry is published, the receiving email server (any) can authenticate inbound emails based on published instructions within the DNS entry by the domain owner. 

If the email makes it through, bypassing the authentication, it can be trusted to be delivered. In case the email fails the authentication, then depending upon the instructions and policies set within the DMARC record, it will be either delivered, quarantined, or rejected. 

• SPF:

SPF or Sender Policy Framework is an email authentication standard that is designed to identify forged email sender addresses during email delivery. In simple terms, it is a protocol with which mail servers decide whether to accept or reject the incoming email. 

This decision is made by using the SPF information TXT records as per the authorized IP addresses enlisted within the particular domain. Therefore, depending upon the list, the email sender’s address is verified for whether it is forged or not.

However, SPF alone is not enough since SPF in combination with DMARC can be effectively used to detect email spoofing. 

• DKIM:

DKIM or Domain Key Identified Mail is a type of email authentication technique that helps organizations claim responsibility for the email message in a way that it can be validated by the email recipient. 

It allows the recipient to check whether the email was indeed sent and authorized by the domain owner by using “public-key cryptography” for verification. This verification key is called the DKIM signature which helps in detecting forged emails and prevents the delivery of spam or phishing emails.

This DKIM signature is secured with encryption and is added to the message as a header. It is usually not visible to the end-user and the validation is done at the server level.

Implementation of a DKIM standard improves email deliverability and when it is implemented together with DMARC and SPF, your domain is fully protected against malicious emails that are sent on your behalf.

Beyond Authentication: Where Modern Best Practices Go Further

DMARC, SPF, and DKIM remain the right starting point. They stop attackers from forging your own domain. So they do nothing against an email that never forges anything at all.

Most financial losses from email attacks today come from messages sent through real, hacked accounts. Meanwhile, others use lookalike domains that pass every authentication check on their own. A protocol cannot flag a message as suspicious when nothing about its technical origin is wrong.

Modern best practice adds a second layer on top of authentication. It is built around the people who read the message:

• Reporting that takes one click. A fast, visible way to flag a suspicious email matters as much as any filter. It is what actually stops a campaign already past the gateway.
• Role-based simulation, not a single annual test. Finance staff face different lures than a sales team. Training that treats everyone the same misses the roles attackers actually target.
• A verification habit for anything involving money. So a phone call to a known number catches what no authentication record can. The fraud sits in the request, not the domain.
• Metrics on behavior, not just protocol status. A correctly published DMARC record says nothing about how fast your staff report a message that still gets through.

Threatcop Phishing Incident Response (TPIR) builds that reporting layer directly into the inbox. So one-click reporting, plus a “Who Else” insight, shows every other mailbox a bad message reached. Authentication protects the domain. This part protects the people who still have to open what lands in front of them.

Cloud Email Needs Its Own Defenses

Most firms now run email on Microsoft 365 or Google Workspace. That changes what you own, and the split is not always obvious.

The provider secures the platform. You secure how your firm uses it. That means logins, access rules, settings, and what happens to the data. Assuming the provider covers all of it is the most common gap in cloud email security.

So five defenses cover the layers a CISO owns.

Two rows deserve attention. Native features often sit unused, because nobody checked what the licence already includes. So firms buy a tool that duplicates what they own. And retention is not backup. A retention policy sets how long deleted items stay recoverable. A backup is a copy you control.

Audit logging is the quiet one. Without mailbox logging switched on, nobody can work out what an attacker read after taking over an account. So check the default on your plan, rather than assuming.

Then review the settings that change quietly. Vendors switch on new features, and defaults shift between plan tiers. A setup that was right last year may not be right now. So put a quarterly review in the calendar, with a named owner.

Still, none of this replaces the human layer. A well-configured tenant will still deliver a convincing message from a hacked supplier account. That is why Threatcop Phishing Incident Response (TPIR) matters alongside the platform controls. One-click reporting from the mail client turns a suspicion into a signal in seconds. Its “Who Else” insight then shows every other mailbox that got the same message, so removal covers the campaign rather than one inbox.

Did you find this blog helpful? Comment below to let us know what you think! 

Also, do check out our email security solution, TDMARC.

Threatcop