Authenticating incoming email (SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and ARC)

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<p id="docs-ai-summary-content">Enhance email security by enabling authentication with SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and ARC. This reduces spoofed emails and spam by suspending unauthenticated emails. Regularly check your Suspended tickets view to address any issues with sender authority or forwarding workflows. Adjust settings to suit your needs, ensuring that legitimate emails aren't mistakenly suspended. Contact your domain admin or provider if issues persist.</p>
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<div class="p">To decrease the number of spoofed emails and spam you receive, you can add an additional layer of
security to your inbound emails by turning on authentication with SPF, DKIM,
DMARC, and ARC support.<ul class="ul" id="topic_nkh_tmb_rw__ul_zrs_t3v_32c">
<li class="li">Sender Policy Framework (<a class="xref" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework" target="_blank">SPF</a>) is a
path-based email authentication technique.</li>
<li class="li">DomainKeys Identified Mail (<a class="xref" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DomainKeys_Identified_Mail" target="_blank">DKIM</a>) is a
signature-based email authentication technique.</li>
<li class="li">Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance
(<a class="xref" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DMARC" target="_blank">DMARC</a>) is a
technical specification that allows email message senders
and receivers to cooperate and better detect when messages
don't originate from the internet domain they appear to
represent.</li>
<li class="li">Authenticated Received Chain (<a class="xref" href="https://www.valimail.com/blog/what-is-email-arc/" target="_blank">ARC</a>) is a set
of email headers used to preserve and validate
authentication through auto-forwarding. You may want to
check that your email provider supports this protocol.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="note important">
<span class="importanttitle">Important:</span> Turning on this type of security authentication can lead to
more cases where emails from unauthenticated workflows, spammers, or even
regular senders may end up in your Suspended tickets view. This can reveal
very important ways to improve the health of your email ecosystem. In
addition, Zendesk occasionally makes improvements and updates to our
authentication policies, which may result in minimal changes to ticket
suspensions.</div>
<p class="p">This article includes the following topics:</p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_nkh_tmb_rw__ul_vpm_3c3_cdb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_jpl_mc3_cdb">Turning on sender authentication</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="#topic_axs_mc3_cdb">Checking for
suspensions</a></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">Related articles:</p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_nkh_tmb_rw__ul_cfh_qc3_cdb">
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4412991936922" target="_blank">Workflow: Ensuring
email system compatibility with Zendesk</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408889141146" target="_blank">Understanding and
managing suspended tickets and spam</a></li>
<li class="li"><a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408893392922" target="_blank">Viewing, recovering,
and deleting suspended tickets</a></li>
<li class="li">Support tip: <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408832769306" target="_blank">What does "Detected
as spam" mean?</a>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title2" class="topic nested1" id="topic_jpl_mc3_cdb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title2">Turning on sender authentication</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and ARC alignment, also referred to as <em class="ph i">sender
authentication</em>, is managed on the Email page in Admin
Center.</p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">To turn on sender authentication</strong></p>
<div class="p">
<ol class="ol" id="topic_jpl_mc3_cdb__ol_jw2_rb3_cdb">
<li class="li"><span class="ph">In <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4581766374554#topic_hfg_dyz_1hb" target="_blank">Admin Center</a>, click <img class="image" id="topic_jpl_mc3_cdb__d8e959" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/ac_channels_icon.png">
<strong class="ph b">Channels</strong> in the sidebar, then select <strong class="ph b">Talk and email &gt; Email</strong>.</span></li>
<li class="li">In the Email settings section, select <strong class="ph b">Authenticate
emails received with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
alignment</strong>.</li>
<li class="li">Select an option: <strong class="ph b">Minimal</strong>, <strong class="ph b">Native traffic</strong>,
or <strong class="ph b">Native and forwarded traffic</strong>.<p class="p">Zendesk
recommends turning on this feature for <strong class="ph b">Native
traffic</strong> first, then testing to ensure that
<strong class="ph b">Native and forwarded traffic</strong> isn't
suspending traffic that should arrive with
authentication verified.</p>
<ul class="ul" id="topic_jpl_mc3_cdb__ul_zzm_nqy_cfc">
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Minimal</strong>: Basic protection across your
Zendesk account that protects both native and
forwarded email, suspending only emails that are
blatant spoof attempts.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Native traffic</strong>: DMARC authentication is
supported for emails sent directly to native
Zendesk support addresses by end users.</li>
<li class="li">
<strong class="ph b">Native and forwarded traffic</strong>: Zendesk
runs authentication checks on email traffic
forwarded to Zendesk, leveraging ARC headers and
authentication results from the forwarding
address.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li class="li">Click <strong class="ph b">Save</strong>.</li>
</ol>
</div>
<p class="p">Emails that don't pass this type of authentication are suspended. You can
view them in your <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408893392922" target="_blank">Suspended tickets
view</a>. Tickets suspended for failing to pass authentication
have <em class="ph i">Failed email authentication</em> as the cause of suspension.
Be very careful recovering these, as they may not be from the sender
listed in the email.</p>
</div>
</div>
<div aria-labelledby="ariaid-title3" class="topic nested1" id="topic_axs_mc3_cdb">
<h2 class="title topictitle2" id="ariaid-title3">Checking for suspensions</h2>
<div class="body">
<p class="p">After you turn on this feature, it's important to monitor your <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408893392922" target="_blank">Suspended tickets view</a>
regularly for suspensions. Emails that are suspended indicate an
issue with the sender’s authority or possibly with your
auto-forwarding workflow. We advise correcting the workflow rather
than turning off the feature. </p>
<p class="p"><strong class="ph b">To check your Suspended tickets view</strong></p>
<div class="p">
<ul class="ul" id="topic_axs_mc3_cdb__ul_ys1_1jj_cdb">
<li class="li">In Zendesk Support, click the <strong class="ph b">Views</strong> (<img class="image" height="16" id="topic_axs_mc3_cdb__image_u3p_sjj_cdb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/views_icon.png">) icon in the
sidebar and then click the <strong class="ph b">Suspended tickets</strong>
view. <p class="p">You can arrange the view by <strong class="ph b">Cause of
suspension</strong> to make identifying issues
easier.</p>
<p class="p"><img class="image" id="topic_axs_mc3_cdb__image_chy_4jj_cdb" src="https://zen-marketing-documentation.s3.amazonaws.com/docs/en/suspended_tickets_view.png" width="250"></p>
</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p class="p">If you find that many emails are suspended, turn off this feature
temporarily and contact your domain admin or provider. This is an
indication that your forwarding workflow may need to be examined and
corrected. You may also need to contact <a class="xref" href="https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/4408843597850" target="_blank">Zendesk Customer
Support</a>.</p>
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