Shoppers from around the world wait intently for the days following up to Thanksgiving, especially in the US, to grab the best deals on Black Friday. Major retail stores and e-commerce platforms from around the world dealing in a wide range of products launch their coveted Black Friday sales, dispensing products at striking discount rates to their scalable customer base.
However, while it is a time for these organizations to make a lot of money, it is also a time when cybercriminals are the most active! Researchers from around the world have concluded that there is a steep surge in the number of spoofing and phishing attacks, leading up to Black Friday. To protect your online shoppers from falling prey to these spoofing attempts, implementing DMARC as an integral part of your workplace security policy is imperative.
Spoofing Attacks- Exploring the Threat Landscape on Black Friday
Spoofing is essentially an impersonation attack that is a more sophisticated attempt at implicating a renowned brand or organization. Spoofing attacks may be launched by deploying various methods. The cybercriminals may target more technical elements of an organization’s network, such as an IP address, domain name system (DNS) server, or Address Resolution Protocol (ARP) service, as part of a spoofing attack.
Research reveals that there is a steep increase in impersonation and spoofing attempts in the days leading up to Black Friday every single year, and yet 65% of the leading online retail stores and e-commerce platforms as of 2020 have no published DMARC record whatsoever!
Wondering what the consequence might be?
The main agenda of cybercriminals while spoofing your domain name is to send out fraudulent emails integrated with phishing links. The attacker tries to lure in your brand’s esteemed customer base with hollow promises of providing unbelievable offers and discount seeking coupons on Black Friday while posing as your customer support. Vulnerable customers who have been shopping on your platform for years and trust your company, wouldn’t think twice before opening the email and trying to avail of the offers.
Using this tactic, attackers spread ransomware and malware, instigate money transfers, or try to steal confidential information from consumers.
Ultimately, your company might end up facing legal repercussions, suffer a blow to its reputation, and lose the confidence of its customers. For these reasons, it’s wise to learn about how you can protect your brand from the surge in spoofing attacks this Black Friday.
Protect Your Business from Spoofing Attacks with DMARC
It is unnatural to expect your consumers to be aware of the changing trends and tactics of cybercriminals, which is why you should be proactive and take necessary action to prevent attackers from using your domain name to carry out malicious activities this Black Friday.
The best and easiest way to ensure that? Implement a leading-edge DMARC-based email authentication tool in your organization at once! Let’s count down the benefits of it:
AI-Driven Email Authentication
You can stop attackers from forging your email header and sending out phishing emails to your customers with the DMARC analyzer that makes use of SPF and DKIM email authentication technologies to block out spoofed emails before they can manage to land in the receiver’s inbox.
Publishing a DMARC record enables you to be in total control of your email channels by verifying each and every sending source and enjoying the freedom of optimizing your DMARC policy (none, quarantine or reject) as per your requirements.
DMARC reporting and monitoring
A DMARC-based authentication and reporting tool like PowerDMARC extends the facilities provided by DMARC by including provisions to report and monitor spoofing and phishing activities in real-time, without affecting your email deliverability rate. Through threat mapping, you can find out the geo-locations of the abusers of your IP address including reports on their history of domain abuse, and blacklist them with the click of a button!
This not only provides you with adequate visibility of your brand’s email domain but also empowers you to monitor any attempts at impersonation and stay updated on the changing tactics of cybercriminals. By monitoring your email reports, you can see which ones passed, failed, or didn’t align with DMARC and at which stage, to get to the root of the problem so that you can take action against it. Comprehensive and readable reports on the same take you through every detail, from SPF verification to DKIM records, highlighting all the IPs that failed DMARC authentication.
Staying under the DNS look-up limit
Your company may have various third-party vendors making it difficult for you to stay under the 10 DNS lookup limit provided by SPF. If you exceed the limit, your SPF will fail, making the implementation useless. However, upgrading to SPF Flattening keeps your lookup limit under check by giving you the ability to add/remove senders from your SPF record without ever exceeding the 10 DNS lookup limit.
Enhance Your Brand Recall with BIMI
To provide your email domain with a second layer of authentication and credibility, you should confide in a hosted BIMI. Brand Indicators for Message Identification (BIMI) is exactly what you need in times like these, to flatten the surge in spoofing attacks prior to Black Friday. This standard affixes your exclusive brand logo on every email you send out to your customer base, letting them know it’s you and not an impersonator.
- BIMI enhances brand recall and reinforces brand image among your customers, letting them visually confirm that the email is genuine.
- It increases brand credibility and reliability
- It improves email deliverability
Upgrade your organization’s security suit and protect your brand against domain abuse this Black Friday with PowerDMARC. Book a demo or sign up for a free DMARC trial today!
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