Report: White House Email Domains Poorly Protected from Fraud

If you want to stop email-based phishing, the Domain Message Authentication Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) protocol is a recognized tool for the job. According to DMARC.org it's a tool being used by nearly 200,000 organizations to secure their email. But according to a report from the Global Cyber Alliance, it's a tool that's not being used very effectively by the White House.

The Alliance surveyed the domains under the control of the Executive Office of the President (EOP) and found that only one - Max.gov - has implemented the protocol at the highest level, which protects most completely against delivery of spoofed email. Seven other domains, including whitehouse.gov and eop.gov have implemented the protocol at the lowest level, which includes only monitoring.

The other 18 domains under the office's control have not implemented any level of DMARC at all. This could be important for those in government and the general public because these government domains are frequent choices for spoofed addresses in phishing campaigns.

Last year, the US Department of Homeland Security mandated that all federal agencies implement DMARC. The Global Cyber Alliance report indicates that not all agencies have embraced the mandate. The private sector has not fully embraced DMARC, either: A recent survey by Agari Data shows that only 8% of businesses have implemented the protocol.

For more, read here, here, and here. 

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