Right now, 89.41% of domains — including most Irish businesses — have no DMARC policy that blocks criminal impersonation. That means anyone can send an email from your address and it will land in your customers' inboxes looking exactly like it came from you.
What DMARC does
DMARC is a DNS record that tells the world's mail servers what to do when someone sends email claiming to be from your domain. Without it, the answer is: deliver it anyway.
With DMARC set to enforcement (p=quarantine or p=reject), spoofed emails are blocked or junked before they reach anyone. Only 10.59% of domains have reached this level of protection.
What happens without it
- Criminals send fake invoices from "your" accounts team — and they get paid
- CEO fraud emails impersonating you request urgent wire transfers
- Phishing emails targeting your own customers use your genuine domain
- Enterprise buyers run DMARC checks in procurement — missing enforcement loses contracts
- Cyber insurance underwriters flag absent enforcement as a material risk factor
What fixing it involves
DMARC works alongside SPF and DKIM (your other email authentication records). The typical path:
- Publish a monitoring record (
p=none) to see who's sending on your behalf - Review the reports for 2–4 weeks to identify all legitimate mail streams
- Move to
p=quarantine— unauthenticated mail goes to spam - Move to
p=reject— unauthenticated mail is blocked entirely
The configuration itself is a DNS TXT record. Getting it right without breaking legitimate email (newsletters, CRM, billing tools) is where most businesses need help.
What your domain scores right now
Run the free DomainScores check to see your current DMARC grade alongside 34 other security checks — instant, no signup.
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