What is email security?

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Think about the last phishing email you almost clicked. Someone faked a sender address, dressed it up to look like your bank, and nearly got you. That's the problem email security exists to solve.

Email security is the collection of practices and technologies that protect email from being abused, forged, intercepted, or weaponized. It covers both sides of the equation: protecting people who receive email from malicious messages, and protecting people who send email from having their domain impersonated or their reputation trashed.

For senders, the most visible pieces of email security are authentication protocols like SPF, DKIM, and DMARC. These tell receiving mail servers that your emails actually came from you, not from someone pretending to be you. Without them, anyone can send an email that looks like it came from your domain. (And they do.)

For recipients, security works at the inbox level. Mailbox providers like Gmail and Outlook filter out spam, block phishing attempts, scan for malware, and check whether a message passes the sender's own authentication rules before it ever reaches the inbox.

Security and deliverability are more connected than most senders realize. A domain with no authentication looks suspicious to spam filters, even if every message you send is completely legitimate. Fixing your security setup often fixes your delivery problems at the same time.

Want to see where your setup stands? Our free SPF checker takes 30 seconds and shows you exactly what receiving servers see when your emails arrive.

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I'm a sender trying to understand email security. Based on my situation below, tell me which security gaps are most likely hurting my deliverability or putting my domain at risk. Give me a ranked list of what to fix first, what to fix next, and what to monitor over time. My situation: - ESP I'm using: e.g. Mailchimp, SendGrid, custom SMTP - Approximate list size: e.g. 5,000 subscribers - Types of email I send: e.g. newsletters, transactional, both - Authentication I've set up so far: e.g. SPF only, none, all three - Any recent issues: [e.g. sudden drop in open rates, landing in spam, nothing obvious]

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