What actions should I take if my inbox is spoofed and how will it impact my sender reputation?
Summary
What email marketers say13Marketer opinions
Email marketer from EasyDMARC explains that you should check if your domain or IP addresses have been blocklisted as a result of the spoofing. Use tools like MXToolbox or Spamhaus to check your blocklist status.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that mailbox providers are sophisticated enough to recognize spoofing attacks and differentiate them from real traffic. They advise to check how day to day email campaigns perform, for example if there is any impact.
Email marketer from ZeroBounce shares that one of the dangers of email spoofing is that it hurts your brand reputation, because customers may lose trust in your business if they receive spoofed emails appearing to come from you that promote scams or phishing attempts.
Email marketer from EmailToolTester shares that it is important to set up DMARC monitoring and check DMARC reports regularly. It can help to use a service like Dmarcian or Postmark to analyze the reports.
Email marketer from Titan explains that to prevent spoofing, raise awareness among employees about how to recognize and report phishing attempts and suspicious emails. Train your team on security best practices to minimize the risk of internal compromise.
Email marketer from Reddit shares that implementing DMARC can significantly reduce the impact of spoofing on your sender reputation because it tells receiving mail servers how to handle unauthenticated emails that claim to be from your domain.
Email marketer from GlockApps explains that if your inbox is spoofed your sender reputation can be damaged if spoofed emails are marked as spam or hard bounce. This can lead to your legitimate emails being filtered into the spam folder.
Email marketer from an Email Marketing Forum explains that if your inbox is spoofed, a sudden increase in your bounce rate is also an indicator, because spammers may be sending emails to invalid addresses using your domain.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that spoofing can hurt deliverability, but DMARC fixed it.
Email marketer from Email Geeks shares that one can set up a DMARC reporting address to see how huge the problem is, and recommends using providers like dmarcian.com to summarize the data in an understandable way.
Email marketer from Mailjet shares that if your inbox is being spoofed, implement SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. Monitor your sender reputation and check if your IP addresses are blocklisted.
Email marketer from SparkPost shares that you should monitor your sender reputation using tools provided by mailbox providers like Google Postmaster Tools and Microsoft SNDS. Look for unusual drops in reputation, which could indicate spoofing activity.
Email marketer from SendPulse explains that it is vital to confirm your domain ownership. With domain authentication, you prove to email providers that you have the right to send emails using this domain, preventing them from landing in spam.
What the experts say4Expert opinions
Expert from Spamresource explains that protecting your domain with authentication is important, and the best way to protect your domain from email spoofing is to ensure that you have properly setup SPF, DKIM and DMARC.
Expert from Spamresource explains that email spoofing can be dangerous to your sender reputation, it allows phishers to gain trust, tricking your customers into giving out information, and it can impact your deliverability rate.
Expert from Email Geeks explains that if the issue is someone using the domain in the From address of their spam, there's hardly any deliverability or reputation impact, and no action is needed, although reading about DMARC is suggested. Further, when asked what to do now DMARC has been set to quarantine and the inbox is being spoofed, Steve responded that no further action is needed, and it won't impact deliverability or brand reputation. He says it is common that a spammer picks an address from a list as their From address. They may need to dig their way out of their inbox though.
Expert from Word to the Wise explains that there are a variety of ways to detect email spoofing including inspecting the full headers, reading the text carefully, and looking for inconsistencies.
What the documentation says3Technical articles
Documentation from Proofpoint explains that DMARC allows domain owners to instruct recipient mail servers on how to handle emails that fail authentication checks. This can include rejecting or quarantining such messages, preventing them from reaching the inbox.
Documentation from Microsoft Learn explains that spoofing is when a spammer uses your email address as the 'From' address. They recommend using SPF, DKIM, and DMARC to prevent spoofing.
Documentation from Google Workspace Admin Help explains that to help prevent spoofing, phishing, and spam, Google recommends you use email authentication. Email authentication confirms that messages are legitimate and helps prevent spammers from sending messages that appear to be from your organization.