Cybersecurity for Small Business: Email Authentication

As a businessman, of course you know about phishing. At first glance, the email looks like it’s from a well-known company, complete with a familiar logo, slogan, and URL. But this is actually an attempt by online scammers to defraud consumers of their account numbers, passwords or cash. In addition to the serious harm these scams cause to consumers, phishing has another victim: reputable businesses whose good reputations are stolen by scammers.

Fraudsters don’t just pretend to be global financial institutions or industrial giants. They also pose as small businesses. But there is good news in the fight against fraud. There are things you can do to stop scammers from sending phishing emails that appear to be from your company.Technical types use the term “email authentication” to refer to tools that work behind the scenes to help servers verify that messages come from yourbusiness.com It really comes from you. These tools will also block the message or send it to a quarantine folder if it shows signs of a phishing attempt.

When we sat down with small businesses to learn how we can help your cybersecurity efforts, you asked for more information about email authentication. The FTC’s Small Business Cybersecurity Campaign provides new resources designed to meet this need.

What you need to know about email authentication

Some web hosting providers allow you to set up your company’s business email using a domain.In other words, if your domain is yourbusiness.comyour email will be Name[at]yourbusiness.com. Without email authentication, scammers can use your domain to send emails that appear to be from your business. To thwart their efforts, make sure your email provider uses these three email authentication tools.