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^[1]
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^[2]. You might be shocked by
the results!

A report from the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security
Agency (CISA) recommends DMARC as a method of protecting against
ransomware.

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^[3]
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^[4]
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. Try out DMARC trail for free^[5]
today!