{"id":640,"date":"2024-01-22T14:54:56","date_gmt":"2024-01-22T14:54:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/nexus\/?p=640"},"modified":"2024-01-22T14:58:05","modified_gmt":"2024-01-22T14:58:05","slug":"spf-dkim-dmarc-now-mandatory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs-new.it.ox.ac.uk\/nexus\/2024\/01\/22\/spf-dkim-dmarc-now-mandatory\/","title":{"rendered":"SPF, DKIM, and DMARC: no longer optional for bulk-sending"},"content":{"rendered":"

Last October Google<\/strong> <\/em>announced that they would be tightening up their standards for what is acceptable in terms of large quantities of email from a single sending domain. Yahoo!<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0made a similar announcement at the same time.<\/p>\n

The first key point to be aware of is that Google <\/a>and Yahoo <\/a>have chosen to publicly announce that they’re tightening up their email acceptance\u00a0 criteria.\u00a0Not every organisation will necessarily be issuing a press release announcing that fact – bulk-email\/spam can be such an annoyance to everybody. So we can be confident that other organisations will be making similar decisions, depending on their perceived scale of the problem, at a time that suits them. We have limited tools available to us to ensure consistent and reliable delivery to our recipients’ inboxes, other than following industry best-practice (which is all they’re asking us to do). It is entirely possible for one part of the University bulk-sending email carelessly to\u00a0cause the rest of the collegiate University to have\u00a0their\u00a0<\/em>outgoing email sent to spam folders, or rejected entirely. In theory only of course: we’re all far too professional for that to happen, right?<\/p>\n

It is therefore vital that all IT Support Staff, in all parts of Oxford, consider and account for these requirements, particularly where they are using any kind of private or third-party bulk sending method. The Email Security Project is endeavouring to apply settings on behalf of the widest possible scenarios and situations but we know that edge-cases exist that may fall outside our visibility, scope, and remit.<\/p>\n

Yahoo\u2019s published requirements for bulk-senders<\/strong><\/h1>\n

They have not specified a threshold above which these restrictions will apply. Email which fails these checks\/requirements will either go to the recipients\u2019 spam folders, or be rejected entirely. In that event a non-delivery report will be sent back to the sender. Spoofed email WILL count against their threshold.<\/p>\n