Microsoft is introducing new policies surrounding businesses sending “mass” numbers of emails. In this blog, we will look at what Microsoft classes as a mass number of emails, what your business needs to do to stay unaffected by the changes and how Three Cherries can help your business. 

What is a Mass Sender? 

Microsoft classes anyone who sends over 5000 emails in a day as a mass sender. This means it’s important to consider areas such as Marketing when evaluating whether these changes will affect your business. Do you use a tool like Mailchimp? Do you send out promo offers for your attraction business? Although the majority of small businesses will be nowhere near this threshold, there will inevitably be a few due to the nature of their business. 

What is Microsoft Enforcing? 

With the rise of cyberthreats such as email spoofing, it’s important that all businesses protect themselves and their reputation in order to reduce the consequences. Whereas Yahoo and Google had already enforced these changes, Microsoft are now following suit. 

The main change is that businesses sending over 5000 emails per day must have valid DMARC records whereby both SPF and DKIM are set up. This has a deadline of the 5th of May meaning that most businesses have only been given a few weeks’ notice to get in line with these new regulations. 

What do SPF, DKIM and DMARC do? 

Microsoft now requires senders to have SPF, DKIM, and DMARC records correctly configured to protect users from spoofing, phishing, and spam. If these aren’t in place, your emails could be blocked or sent straight to spam folders. 

SPF: This tells mail servers which IP addresses are allowed to send emails on behalf of your domain. It’s your first line of defence against email spoofing. 

DKIM: This adds a digital wax seal to your emails, proving the content hasn’t been tampered with during delivery. It also validates that the sender is genuine. 

DMARC: DMARC ties SPF and DKIM together. It tells receiving servers how to handle messages that fail authentication and gives you reports so you know exactly what is happening. 

What Does Our Business Need to Do? 

If you are around this threshold limit or over, its vital that you implement DMARC policies as soon as possible to avoid a worst case scenario of your emails not being delivered or landing in junk folders. Even if you’re not hitting Microsoft’s 5,000 email per day “mass sender” threshold, setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC is now considered essential best practice for any business using email. 

If you’re unsure how to add DMARC to your domain, contact us today. We can ensure that your domain is authenticated and safe from the new Microsoft policies. At Three Cherries, we take the gamble out of business technology.