ePrism User Guide - EdgeWave

Configuring Email Security
SPF (Sender Policy Framework)
ePrism’s SPF support prevents spammers from spoofing mail headers and impersonating a
legitimate email user or domain. Unsuspecting users may reply to these seemingly legitimate
addresses with personal and confidential information.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) provides a means for authenticating the source of an email by
querying the sending domain’s DNS records. The SPF protocol allows server administrators to
describe their email servers in their DNS records. By comparing the headers of the email with the
SPF value, the receiving host can verify that the email is originating from the legitimate mail server
for that domain. This prevents spammers from sending forged emails.
ePrism’s SPF actions only apply to incoming mail messages that have failed an SPF check, which
means that the email message does not match the corresponding published SPF record. If a
specific mail server does not have an existing SPF record then the message is processed normally.
It is possible, however, that administrators may misconfigure their DNS SPF records, resulting in
false positives and legitimate hosts being blocked from sending you mail.
SPF is an emerging anti-fraud and anti-phishing technology that is designed primarily as a
mechanism to prevent forged emails rather than an anti-spam measure. It is dependent on network
administrators publishing their legitimate email servers in their DNS records and ensuring these
records are properly configured. St. Bernard encourages customers that use SPF in their DNS
infrastructure to review their own SPF records to ensure they are accurate.
Note: St. Bernard recommends that if you enable SPF, you should set the action to modify
the subject header rather than reject the message to ensure that false positives due to
sending system misconfiguration are not completely rejected.
Select Mail Delivery -> SPF on the menu to configure Sender Policy Framework settings:
• Enable SPF — Select the check box to enable SPF verification. The SPF action will only apply
to messages that fail an SPF check.
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