How To Create An SPF Record: Crucial Points To Keep In Mind Creating & Publishing SPF Records For Your Domain

With increased mobility and the general rise of technology in every sphere of our lives, privacy has become a mythical commodity. Organizations, too, face similar threats from individuals with malicious intent. They invest a considerable amount of resources to create a secure infrastructure that enables them to challenge such actions and build firewalls around key points deemed critical for business continuity.

The rapid growth of information flow through emails would mean that the latest techniques, like Sender Policy Framework, will have to be employed to defeat the state of the art cyber-attacks.

One of the surest ways to prevent mischievous intent is to create a list of mailers who would be allowed to send emails to you, thereby eradicating the possibility of anonymous mailers.

spf records

How To Create An SPF Record: Points You Must Keep In Mind

IP addresses

Businesses and organizations use a diverse collection of IP addresses from where mails are sent. Every IP address has to be gathered, of which a list is prepared. The mail servers used to send emails and are often vulnerable to phishing and spamming.

The Sender Policy Framework states that the TXT record has to be added to the DNS record to use a custom domain. It is to prevent spoofing.

Domains

Like the earlier exercise, a list of all the domains used to send emails needs to be listed. It must be noted that even the domains which are not used to send emails are to be listed. It is because they are equally vulnerable to spoofing and phishing attacks.

Creating the SPF record

The easiest way to create an SPF record is by tagging the IP addresses which are authorized to send emails.

  • For third party mailing systems, do not forget to use “include.”
  • Once all the IP addresses have been added, end the statement with an ~all”.
  • Hence, the SPF record syntax needs to include either IP addresses or the name of the third party being used to send mails. It is a straight forward syntax that does not require much effort.
  • A simple SPF record example would be: TXT @ “v=SPF1 a include:_SPF.yahoo.com ~all”

Publishing

By merely creating an SPF record will not help you resolve the issue. The server has to be provided with the list for it to identify the threats. Moreover, any improper configuration may lead to rejecting for Sender Policy Framework.

Hence, the SPF record has to be published to the DNS.

One can test if the SPF record was published correctly using an SPF checker after all the steps have been followed. A word of caution here. The SPF record is not an entirely useful tool. The reason is that not all mail providers will check for it. But it is still a valuable method to prevent unwanted bounce backs and spams.

Knowing how to create an SPF record is an operative method to counter the numerous threats organizations face during email communication. Although it is not a fool-proof methodology, it still ensures a robust system for improved mail delivery and reduced spoofing attacks.

MORE – Sender Policy Framework Office 365

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