SPF Errors and Email to Fax
If you use Email to Fax you may have received “Email failed SPF validation” message you may be wondering what this is about.
Not to worry. The issue is quickly solvable. First, we’ll explain what SPF is and why it’s important you have it set up and we’ll also have some technical stuff that will help your IT staff get it done quickly.
SPF or “Sender Policy Framework” is an email server standard. It enables a domain (xyz.com) to publicly state which servers may send emails on your behalf. Basically, it’s like a blue checkmark on Twitter but for email. It lets other Email servers know that the email you sent is really from your domain and not some forged email by some hacker overseas. A vast majority of servers are already set up for SPF and the setup is rather easy but some administrators may have missed it.
Why is this important and why are we enforcing it?
If someone were to compromise your systems and gain an understanding of your configurations they could forge emails from your domain to anyone else utilizing our Email to Fax Service. A scammer could send fake invoices to your customers, they could send viruses and ransomware to your customers or anyone else and it would appear to come from your domain. When your SPF is properly set up scammers can still try to do this but the receiving email servers would spot the fake quickly and remove it. We have recently restricted emails from senders that do not support SPF to prevent the aforementioned situation from occurring. It may be temporarily inconvenient but we put security first at WestFax and we can help you figure this out.
So how do you fix it?
We always say that you should consult your IT staff to handle it but you are the “IT Staff” you may have to rely on google. Depending on who you use as an email provider you can find a lot of guides out there on setting up SPF.
Who is your email provider:
Want to roll out your own SPF record? Use this tool to generate your SPF and follow this guide on setting it up.
Once you are done with this it may take 15-30 minutes for the changes to take effect. Adding an SPF record is a simple process that pays huge dividends. Your emails are more trusted. Fewer emails end up in spam and your customers will not be duped by scammers. While you are at it you should setup DKIM/DMARC too.