Created by Yahoo!, DomainKeys/DKIM is an authentication scheme that signs messages based on the "from" header and a DNS (Domain Name Server) record maintained by your DNS servers. For example, if your company's domain name is registered with GoDaddy.com there's a good chance your DNS is also hosted with GoDaddy.com. To keep it simple, a DNS is a set of rules and parameters for your domain name. Since your DNS is managed by you and hosted inside a secure area (such as GoDaddy.com) it's a secure way to prove the "from" address originated from the correct mail servers.
DomainKeys/DKIM validates emails using two security keys. The keys encrypt messages before delivery and validate the message at delivery time. DKIM and DomainKeys are very similar; however, DKIM was created by several companies to enhance DomainKeys. Today, major ISPs such as Google (@gmail.com) and Yahoo! (@yahoo.com) use DKIM.
Benefits of using DomainKeys/DKIM:
- It allows the originating domain of an e-mail to be positively identified, allowing domain-based blacklists and white lists to be more effective. This is also likely to make phishing attacks easier to detect.
- It allows forged e-mail messages to be discarded on sight, either by end-user e-mail software (mail user agents), or by ISPs' mail transfer agents.
- It allows abusive domain owners to be tracked more easily.
- It allows a great reduction in abuse desk work for DKIM-enabled domains if e-mail receivers use the DKIM system to automatically drop forged e-mail messages claiming to be from that domain.
- The domain owner can then focus their abuse team energies on their own users who actually are abusing their use of that domain.
Lead Liaison uses a premier email marketing engine from Port25 which enables authentication using DomainKeys/DKIM. Lead Liaison will completely configure DomainKeys/DKIM for you. No setup is required on your part. Your Lead Liaison Customer Success Representative will set this up.
