We’ve all received them in our email inbox – some phony email from an apparently dependable source. Ever have a parent, staff member or student complain that they’re getting bogus emails from your school?
“Forged” emails is not only an irritating issue for those receiving them, but it reflects poorly on your school’s reputation. If the email server is unsecure and prone to such problems, one might wonder what other sensitive information or other aspects of school operations are exposed.
Email, still the most strongest and most popular form of digital communications in schools, unfortunately is a very vulnerable form of communication. With the proper safeguards, however, you can protect your school’s email delivery.
The problem could be more than forged emails from your domain making their way to the email boxes of parents, staff, students or any community member. Your newsletters and email messages could also be getting caught in SPAM filters.
In a previous post, I covered DNS and how schools use it. A key feature of DNS is the option for schools to deploy a SPF record. SPF records are the key to protecting your email from spoofing and being captured by SPAM filters.
SPF – at least this kind of SPF – has nothing to do with sunblock. SPF stands for Sender Policy Framework. SPF uses a DNS TXT record (Link to other post about DNS, to the TXT definition) to tell the world who can send email as your domain. Think of SPF as a driver’s license for email servers. Anyone without an SPF is driving illegally, and the email needs to be impounded.
Your school needs an SPF record to stop forgery before it happens. While this SPF won’t block harmful UV rays from the sun, it will offer a great deal of protection for your school. And it’s not greasy to apply.
SPF is just one facet of securing email for schools. The great news is SPF records are easy to setup, and I'm going to show you how. Here is a list of items you need to get together before you start:
Once you have that list pulled together, there’s a handy wizard that Microsoft provides free of charge. Use this wizard to obtain a properly formatted SPF that you can easily share with your DNS provider or cooperative.
Follow these steps with the SPF wizard:
Now you have a formatted SPF record. If you have a cooperative that hosts your DNS, email them the SPF record text and tell them to add it to your domain as a TXT record. If you manage your DNS, login to your DNS provider, and create a new TXT record. Paste the text from your SPF record into the data field for the TXT record, and submit the update.
Your school just got its first SPF, and hopefully its last forged email.
Now that your SPF record is live, let's test our record. Use the SPF lookup tool here. Your SPF record should be automatically added to your DNS.
What do you do when you have updates? Rerun the wizard, add the new servers, and republish the record. It's that simple.
With major online players like Twitter and Google mail investing major resources into insuring security and privacy in their email practices, your school can likewise protect its email with some simple steps.
SPF records help stop fake emails from your school and keep your vital messages from getting caught in SPAM filters. Making the time to run through this quick process will help your school communicate safely via email.