A post by our IT department
With our new Blog Post we would like to inform you about our latest improvement to make our
e-mail communication with YOU even more secure! Therefore, we implemented the following IT protocols:
- SPF (Sender Policy Frameworks),
- DKIM (Domain Keys Identified Mail)and
- DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentification, Reporting and Conformance).
SPF and DKIM are used to filter spam, spoofing and fraud mails, in addition DMARC tells the recipient how to deal with it. The entity that holds all this information is our DNS (Domain Name Service). That’s the service on the Internet that converts names, like www.industronic.de, into an IP address.
In order to give you a better understanding of how it works, we would like to describe it more detailed. To make it easier, let’s compare sending e-mails with sending letters via courier:
At the beginning, INDUSTRONIC Wertheim sends a letter to the customer ‘ABC’. On the road the letter courier is distracted by a criminal person and the letter is stolen. This criminal person changes the content to his preference, e.g. changes the payment account data, and then forwards it to ‘ABC’.
At ‘ABC’, the criminal, who pretends to be the courier, arrives and wants to deliver the letter. But before he can do so, SPF, an ‘employee’ at the reception desk, checks where the letter comes from and whether the letter courier is the one INDUSTRONIC has instructed. This is not the case. So, due to SPF it was revealed that the letter courier is not the right one.
Now, DKIM, another ‘employee’ at the reception checks whether the sealed envelope is still closed and intact. This is also not the case.
In a next step, DMARC gives instructions to the people at the reception desk how to deal with this letter. There are three options: To accept, to quarantine or to reject the letter – AND in all cases notify the sender, which is INDUSTRONIC.
Thanks to this process the recipient is able to easily detect and take measures against spam and fraud. This has positive effects for every involved party – because e-mail fraud is not to be underestimated and can be very dangerous.
Our appeal to you, valued partners and customers, check your mail server settings so that we can communicate securely with each other. Make sure that SPF, DKIM and DMARC are enabled in your mail servers. Certified e-mail service providers can also help with this complex issue. Due to increasing complexity, often only IT professionals are able to securely administer mail services.
In the end, these measures help to reduce or prevent the impact of malware, mail fraud or ‘man in the middle’ attacks.
If you are interested in learning more about this topic, the following YouTube Video describes it very well.
Please feel free to contact us if you have any request or suggestion.
