DMARC: The First Line of Defense Against Ransomware

There has been a lot of buzz in the industry about ransomware lately. Almost every other day, it's making headlines. With businesses across the globe holding their breath, scared they might fall victim to the next major ransomware attack, it is now time to take action.

The FBI IC3 report of 2020 classified Ransomware as the most financially damaging cybercrime of the year, with no major improvement in 2021.

Wouldn't it be nice if you could prevent a ransomware attack from occurring in the first place? DMARC can make this seemingly impossible claim a possibility for domain owners!

Multiple benefits arise from your DMARC implementation over time, including an increase in the deliverability of your email as well as a higher domain reputation. DMARC is also known as the first line of defense against Ransomware.

Let's take a closer look.

What are the Risks Associated with Ransomware?

Ransomware is malicious software that installs itself on your computer without your permission. It then encrypts your data, and you can only get it back by paying a fee.

Once a ransomware program has gained access to your system, it can cause a great deal of havoc, and the ransom demands are expensive to resolve. It is disastrous for a business that relies on access to critical data stored on its computers.

Lack of DMARC protection in organizations can lead to the following:

• When email authentication protocols are not in place, cybercriminals can easily pretend to be you and send fake emails to your clients, partners, and even internal employees.
• Fraudulent email messages may contain attachments or files containing ransomware.
• If any of your employees open the message, your entire organization is put at risk of having sensitive information present on your organizational systems denied access, with your data being held hostage for huge amounts of money.
• Furthermore, if the phishing email contains ransomware and is delivered to and opened by your clients and partners who see it as coming from you, it will damage your company's reputation.
• The threat of ransomware attacks perpetrated by using fake email messages results from the use of spoofing tactics on your domain, and either way can potentially result in your business going under, your customers losing trust, and loss of data and financial assets.
• The payment of a ransom is not a guarantee that you will regain access to your data since attackers often do not decrypt information once it has been encrypted, even after receiving payment.
• When you implement DMARC at your organization, you ensure that the email receivers only receive emails that are sent from legitimate sources and are authorized by you. DMARC allows you to instruct your email receiving servers to block messages that appear suspicious or are sent from unapproved sources. In this way, the risk of malware being delivered via fake emails is greatly reduced.

To find out how safe your domain is against email spam and spoofing, use this DMARC Domain Checker. You might be shocked by the results!

The Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) recommends DMARC for Ransomware Protection

As a result of the increase in Ransomware attacks on global businesses, the CISA has deemed email phishing to be one of the most potent vectors of the threat.

Cybersecurity Infrastructure Security Agency of the US government has recommended, in their Ransomware Protection Guide, that all businesses, including government agencies, implement DMARC as early as possible to reduce the likelihood of spoofed or modified emails from valid domains. The reason for this is that DMARC builds on email authentication standards like SPF and DKIM, which authenticate sending sources, and ensure that your recipients are never deceived.

Implementing a DMARC analyzer in your organization ensures you are protected from impersonation to the fullest extent possible. This tool makes it easy to configure DMARC for your domain and switch to an enforced policy within days.

This ultimately leads to:

• Lowers the chances of your domain being spoofed by attackers
• Prevents the delivery of fake emails to your receivers and improves trust with your partners
• Drastically reduces the success rate of ransomware attacks on your customers
• Boosts email deliverability and domain reputation
• Provides you an early indicator of any attacks that are launched against your brand

Monitoring Your Domain is a Must to Prevent Future Attacks

While DMARC can help you mitigate Ransomware attacks by preventing your domain name from being spoofed, it is important to realize that attackers are constantly adapting their tactics and upgrading their software. The sophistication of social engineering attacks is increasing over time, making them more difficult to detect and prevent.

This is why monitoring your domains at your organization is so vital to maintaining an effective email security posture. DMARC reports allow you to do just that.

A DMARC Report Analyzer helps you:

• Monitor your domains across an interactive and organized dashboard
• View your DMARC reports in a simplified, human-readable format
• It handles your DMARC data on your behalf
• Parses complex XML files into easily readable tables and charts, and helps you view your authentication results in real-time
• Converts your DMARC reports into PDF documents that you can easily share with your employees
• View granular details on email sending sources such as their underlying IP addresses, organizational domains, history of domain abuse, and geolocations of your senders. This data allows you to track malicious sources faster and take action against them.

Overall, it serves to prevent fraud from happening in the future. Since humans are prone to making mistakes, urging your customers and employees not to click on malicious links is pointless. Taking matters into your own hands is what you should do instead. Sign up for your free DMARC trial today!