Differences

This shows you the differences between two versions of the page.

--- email [2019/08/25 09:01] – neil
+++ email [2021/07/06 09:26] (current) – external edit 127.0.0.1
@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
 =====Securing your email =====
-It is vital to secure your email.
+If you use email — and, let's face it, how many lawyers do not? — it is vital that you secure it.
-You are probably communicating a lot of sensitive information by email, and email is likely to be the system used to reset passwords on other accounts.
+You are probably communicating a lot of sensitive information by email, and email is likely to be the system used to reset passwords on other accounts. At the very least, secure your email. However, you should also consider if email is the right tool at all – there are [[email_alternatives|alternatives]] which may offer security more appropriate to the risk.
 If your email account gets compromised, it could be very difficult to unpick it.
@@ Line 89: / Line 89: @@
 DKIM — DomainKeys Identified Mail — is a mechanism for signing and verifying messages.
-As with [[#spf|SPF]], you need to add a text record to your domain's DNS, but you also need to make changes to your mail server's configuration.
+As with [[#spf|SPF]], you need to add a text record to your domain's DNS, but, for DKIM, you also need to make changes to your mail server's configuration.
 What you will need to do will depend on your email server or service provider, so either check the manual or help pages, or get someone who knows what they are doing to help.
@@ Line 96: / Line 96: @@
 DMARC — Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance — is an authentication and reporting mechanism. It builds on [[#spf|SPF]] and [[#DKIM|DKIM]], and lets a sender state whether their email are protected by either or both of these things, and what a recipient should do if those tests fail.
+Because it builds on SPF and DKIM, get those in place first, before you look at implementing DMARC.
 As with [[#spf|SPF]] and [[#DKIM|DKIM]], this is another text record for your domain's DNS.
-What you will need to do will depend on your email server or service provider, so either check the manual or help pages, or get someone who knows what they are doing to help.
+From a security point of view, setting your DMARC reject to suggest to recipients that they should reject messages from your domain which fail SPF and/or DKIM checks offers the best security. It requires you to make sure that your SPF and DKIM records are correct and up to date as, otherwise, "genuine" email might be rejected.
 ====Enable two-factor authentication if you use webmail ====