DMARC: Managed vs DIY

WHEN DIY NO LONGER MAKES SENSE: FACTORS TO CONSIDER WHEN HIRING A MANAGED SERVICES PROVIDER


As an IT leader, probably you will always have a tendency towards taking up a challenge and implement a project from scratch all by yourself. Just like you owning a car. You want to control every aspect of what goes into it. From the engine to the tail lights, you’re willing to tackle every project head-on without any external help.

WHEN DIY GOES WRONG

Until you get stuck on a problem that you’re not equipped to handle.

When you hit a wall, you can keep trying to fix the damage/issue by yourself – which can be extremely frustrating. Or, you have the option to take your car to a master mechanic that can easily fix the issue for you.

The business world is not much different than our personal lives. I mean, we are always looking to save money or we (rightly so) have a great amount of confidence in our abilities or the abilities of our team. But when does DIY no longer make sense? When does it make more sense to turn to a Managed Service Provider.

Below are the major factors to consider when deciding whether Managed Services makes sense.

Time

For all the time you’ll spend learning a new system or troubleshooting an issue you’ve never seen before, how much time could you save by passing it to someone who has done the same job hundreds of times before?


Risk

DMARC implementation is a doubled edged sword. Wrong implementation often results in your transactional emails lending into spam or getting rejected by receiving mailboxes which in turn can bring huge business loss because of loss in communication.

Expertise

In the past, IT professionals and midmarket businesses had capacity to learn and stay up to date with the systems that were critical to running the business. Today, the diversity of skills required, the need for real-time expertise, and the acceleration in the deployment of new solutions is making it extremely difficult to be a subject matter expert in everything.


Focus

Focus of the managed service providers will be always to keep an eye on your email infrastructure and none of your legit senders get blocked and none of your illegit senders should reach inbox of receivers. Your focus can always be on other critical matters of the organization and you can always be sure about things being in place.

"With great power comes great responsibility"

Contact Us

Risks involved in deploying DMARC on your own:

  1. DMARC requires Subject Matter Expertise

    DMARC requires deep expertise to successfully implement and maintain. A DMARC project will require investing significant time and resources to gain knowledge of how SPF, DKIM, and DMARC work, along with the knowledge to how to solve for authentication errors that require fixing. From identifying forwarded email, knowledge of certain email receiver intricacies, and much more, deep knowledge is required for successful implementation.

  2. Risk of blocking legitimate emails

    Once DMARC is fully deployed to block fraudulent emails that spoof your domains, any email that fails authentication will be deleted automatically. In order to prevent the blocking of legitimate email, you need to have authentication visibility into all the email coming into (and being sent from) your organization and those of your trusted 3rd party senders. This visibility is a critical part of authentication as it will help you identify all legitimate email senders – whether they’re sending to consumer mailboxes or other businesses. But the importance of authentication visibility doesn’t stop there. You also need a view into whether your legitimate email senders are authenticating properly.

  3. Working & Understanding large data sets

    It can be difficult to keep up with the sheer volume of DMARC reports you will receive during your DMARC journey, and you’ll need to be able to build and manage a system that can store and render large data sets. This also requires setting aside significant time to understand and interpret the actionable insights that are within these reports.

  4. Working with StakeHolders

    Proper DMARC implementation requires identifying and contacting various stakeholders within your organization, as well as legitimate 3rd-party email senders – potentially an incredibly time-consuming process. This is necessary work to ensure that all mail is authenticating properly, and you aren’t blocking legitimate mail. Imagine your marketing team has scheduled a large marketing campaign using a 3rd party sender. If that sender isn’t authenticating properly, DMARC could block the entire campaign.

  5. Ongoing support & management

    Business needs change over time – including email practices used across the various groups within, and outside of your organization. You will need to dedicate time, resources, and well-educated DMARC experts to support your email authentication efforts going forward and work through any changes that arise, such as new 3rd party senders coming online.

StopSpoof Outbound Fraud Protection provides the tools, and expert services to help organizations implement and continually manage DMARC quickly and confidently.