CyberzSOC

CERT-EU Security Whitepaper 17-001 DMARC — Defeating E-Mail Abuse E-mail is one of the most valuable and broadly used means of communication and most organizations strongly depend on it. The Simple Mail Transport Protocol (SMTP) – the Internet’s underlying email protocol – was adopted in the eighties and is still in use after 35 years. When it was designed, the need for security was not so obvious, and therefore security was not incorporated in the design of this protocol. As a result, the protocol is susceptible to a wide range of attacks. Spear-phishing campaigns in particular can be more successful by spoofing (altering) the originator e-mail address to impersonate a trusted or trustworthy organization or person. This can lead to luring the recipient into giving away credentials or infecting his/her computer by executing malware delivered through While raising user awareness on how to avoid e-mail fraud is recommended, the Verizon Data Breach Investigations Report indicates that more needs to be done.