SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. It was developed to combat sender address forgery. It is an authentication protocol which verifies the MAIL FROM or HELO/EHLO identities during email transmission. SPF does this by comparing the sending server’s IP address to a list of authorised senders. The authorised senders are the IP addresses which are allowed to send on behalf of the sending domain. They are specified in a TXT record which is published in the domain owner’s DNS.

If the receiving end supports SPF, then, upon receipt of an email it checks if the sending IP address is authorised to send on behalf of the domain and if is not in that list SPF authentication will fail. 

DMARC uses both SPF and DKIM. For information on what DKIM is please click the button below.

Find out below which protocols must be in place for you to start using DMARC.

Create a free OnDMARC account to test your configuration.