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Explain DMARC Report: RUA and RUF

Explain DMARC Report: RUA and RUF

DMARC, a strong email security protocol, provides a detailed view of your domain’s email activities, helping prevent unauthorized or malicious use. This enhances email security and ensures smooth delivery by blocking phishing and spam.

Within DMARC reporting, two key report types—DMARC RUA and RUF, also called aggregate and forensic reports—offer insights into your email system’s health. This guide explores the differences between RUA and RUF reports, explaining how each contributes to securing your email communications.

To start receiving RUA and RUF reports, create and publish a DMARC record on your domain’s DNS. This foundational step unlocks the power of DMARC, safeguarding your email channels effectively.

What is a DMARC RUA Report?

In DMARC, a RUA report, also known as an DMARC Aggregate report, is a feedback mechanism that provides domain owners with information about the email traffic claiming to be from their domain. These reports help domain owners monitor and analyze email authentication results to improve the security and deliverability of their emails.

The RUA report contains aggregated data about the authentication status of emails sent on behalf of the domain, including information about SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) authentication results. These reports are sent by email receivers to the specified reporting email address (specified in the DMARC policy) in XML format.

For eg: v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com

RUA reports include the following information:

  • Date and time range of the report
  • The domain
  • The IP address that sent the message
  • Whether SPF and DKIM have passed or failed
  • The DMARC policy applied
  • The domain associated with SPF and DKIM

What is a DMARC RUF Report?

RUF reports are detailed forensic reports about email messages that fail DMARC authentication. Forensic reports provide detailed information about an email message, including it’s subject, header, and information about attachments and URLs, allowing domain owners to investigate and analyze why a message failed DMARC authentication. This information is crucial for identifying and mitigating potential phishing or spoofing attacks. In addition to it, you can understand if and why there are any occurrences of false positives. Like RUA reports, RUF reports can be enabled by including the ‘ruf’ tag in the DMARC record along with the email address where you would like to receive the forensic reports.

For eg: v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com; ruf=mailto:dmarc@example.com

Many receivers will not provide RUF reporting due to the potential personally identifiable information (PII) that reports may contain

ProDMARC: Simplifying DMARC Reporting

ProDMARC offers a user-friendly solution for organizations seeking to make sense of their DMARC reports. Key features include:

Dashboard:

  • Transforms raw XML reports into easy-to-understand dashboard
  • Enhances readability and comprehension.

Data Parsing:

  • Parses complex data within the reports for easy analysis.
  • Extracts crucial information related to authentication and delivery.

Segregation into Categories:

  • Segregates data into categories such as IP addresses, organizations, and sending sources.
  • Facilitates targeted analysis.

Filtering Options:

  • Provides filtering options to focus on specific data subsets.
  • Enables users to identify patterns and trends.

Alerts and Notifications:

  • ProDMARC provides alerts and notifications to domain owners based on the analysis of RUA and RUF data. For example, if a significant number of messages fail DMARC authentication or if there are patterns indicative of malicious activity, ProDMARC may alert the domain owner to take appropriate measures.

Conclusion

Understanding RUA and RUF reports is integral to optimizing DMARC implementation. However, the complexity of these raw reports can be a hurdle. With ProDMARC, organizations can overcome this challenge, gaining actionable insights to improve overall email deliverability and security for a domain.

In fact, our team of experts is dedicated to providing end-to-end support for DMARC implementation. From initial setup to achieving a “reject” policy, our experts make the journey seamless for domain owners. We understand the challenges organizations face in securing their email communication and are committed to ensuring airtight protection against phishing and email spoofing.

As the digital landscape continues to evolve, a robust DMARC strategy backed by effective reporting tools becomes essential in safeguarding against email threats. It’s crucial to stay ahead of the curve, especially with the upcoming security standards set by Google and Yahoo, which will be enforced in February 2024. Elevate your email security posture with ProDMARC, Call us at +91-9820116312 or Book a free demo today!