SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a type of email authentication mechanism that is used to determine whether an email message is coming from an authorized sender. It works by checking the domain name of the email sender against a list of authorized sending IP addresses published in the DNS record of the sender’s domain.
In the context of DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance), SPF plays a crucial role in enabling email receivers to determine the authenticity of email messages that claim to originate from a particular domain. DMARC uses SPF as one of the two primary forms of email authentication (the other being DKIM) to validate whether an email message has been sent from a legitimate source.
Specifically, DMARC specifies that SPF must pass the authentication check for it to consider an email message to be legitimate. If the SPF check fails, DMARC can instruct the email receiver to either reject the message outright or place it in the recipient’s spam or junk folder. This helps to prevent email spoofing and phishing attacks targeting a domain, which in turn helps to protect the brand reputation of the affected company.
