Lesson plan

DMARC

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is an email authentication protocol. It is designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing. The purpose and primary outcome of implementing DMARC is to protect a domain from being used in business email compromise attacks, phishing email and email scams. Once the DMARC DNS entry is published, any receiving email server can authenticate the incoming email based on the instructions published by the domain owner within the DNS entry. If the email passes the authentication, it will be delivered and can be trusted. If the email fails the check, depending on the instructions held within the DMARC record the email could be delivered, quarantined or rejected. DMARC extends two existing email authentication mechanisms, Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). It allows the administrative owner of a domain to publish a policy in their DNS records to specify how to check the From: field presented to end users and how the receiver should deal with failures, and it provides a reporting mechanism for actions performed under those policies. DMARC is defined in the Internet Engineering Task Force's published document RFC 9989, dated May 2026, as "Standards Track".

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Article summary

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance (DMARC) is an email authentication protocol. It is designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing. The purpose and primary outcome of implementing DMARC is to protect a domain from being used in business email compromise attacks, phishing email and email scams. Once the DMARC DNS entry is published, any receiving email server can authenticate the incoming email based on the instructions published by the domain owner within the DNS entry. If the email passes the authentication, it will be delivered and can be trusted. If the email fails the check, depending on the instructions held within the DMARC record the email could be delivered, quarantined or rejected. DMARC extends two existing email authentication mechanisms, Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM). It allows the administrative owner of a domain to publish a policy in their DNS records to specify how to check the From: field presented to end users and how the receiver should deal with failures, and it provides a reporting mechanism for actions performed under those policies. DMARC is defined in the Internet Engineering Task Force's published document RFC 9989, dated May 2026, as "Standards Track".

Key claims

  1. date of formation: 2014 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  2. publication date: 2026 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  3. publication date: 2015 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95
  4. publication date: 2026 — source: Wikipedia · confidence 0.95

Discussion questions

  1. Summarise the article in your own words. Which single claim would you verify first, and why?
  2. The record states that the date of formation is "2014". What evidence would count against this claim?
  3. The record states that the publication date is "2026". What evidence would count against this claim?
  4. The record states that the publication date is "2015". What evidence would count against this claim?
  5. The record states that the publication date is "2026". What evidence would count against this claim?
  6. Which claim in this article is most likely to be revised as the sources update? How would you check its current status?
  7. If two sources disagreed about one of these facts, what would you need in order to trust one over the other?

Bibliography

  1. Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1375212722

Key claims and bibliography are generated from the same tracked claims and sources as the article page.