What is SPF?
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is an email authentication protocol that domain owners use to specify the email servers they send email from. SPF authorises specific outbound mail server IPs to send on a domain’s behalf, which means they play a key role in email security because they ensure that your domain is only sending emails from a verified list of servers, which you specify.
By default, TouchBasePro supplies an SPF record for you, authorising the domains and IP addresses through which our service sends email. However, that SPF record does not sit with your domain, meaning that some mail servers with stricter protocols may cause delivery problems.
Why do I need to add TouchBasePro’s SPF?
Some mail servers are configured to reject emails that come from an external server but use the same domain, in the “From” address, that they host.
In some cases, the receiving mail server may perform additional checks to verify the integrity of the email, resulting in delayed delivery, or it may be blocked outright.
If you add our SPF record to your own domain’s DNS, you are authorising to your server that you are allowing TouchBasePro’s emails to go out on your domain, so they are trustworthy.
What to add
v=spf1 include:touchbasepro.email
Consider DKIM and DMARC – Added email security
While making these changes to your SPF record, you may also want to consider additional deliverability and security measures for your email environment.
Adding DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) authentication for your account is another layer of integrity that will increase your chances of reaching the inbox when sending your bulk emails. Receiving mail servers that get messages signed with DKIM can verify messages actually came from the sender, and not someone impersonating the sender.
If you would like to add this for your account, please email support@touchbasepro.com and one of our support team will send you the instructions.
While most organisations have security software in place to protect staff from phishing and system hacks, what is often neglected is what happens outside of your internal email environment.
Email impersonation or “spoofing” is one of the biggest issues in the email world. What cybercriminals do is essentially impersonate your business or brand. Flaws in email design allows criminals to insert any sender’s address in a forged email.
This means criminals can pretend to be you, or your staff, to phish or hack other companies. The impact on your brand can be highly detrimental!
To prevent this, adding a DMARC record to your domain and analysing emails are being sent on your behalf is key. If you would like to run a free analysis, reach out to our Head of Business Development on des@touchbasepro.com and one of our email experts will be in touch to help you.
If you’re keen to find out more about TouchBasePro’s DMARC process, click here.