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




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Verified AI summary ◀▼
Enhance email security by enabling SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and ARC authentication to reduce spoofed emails and spam. This feature suspends unauthenticated emails, which can be reviewed in the Suspended tickets view. Regularly check for suspensions to identify issues with sender authority or forwarding workflows. Adjust workflows if needed, rather than disabling the feature, to maintain email ecosystem health.




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.
Sender Policy Framework (SPF) is a
path-based email authentication technique.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is a
signature-based email authentication technique.
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance
(DMARC) 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.
Authenticated Received Chain (ARC) 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.



Important: 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.
This article includes the following topics:


Turning on sender authentication
Checking for
suspensions


Related articles:


Workflow: Ensuring
email system compatibility with Zendesk
Understanding and
managing suspended tickets and spam
Viewing, recovering,
and deleting suspended tickets
Support tip: What does "Detected
as spam" mean?





Turning on sender authentication

SPF, DKIM, DMARC, and ARC alignment, also referred to as sender
authentication, is managed on the Email page in Admin
Center.


Note: Sender authentication is always turned
on for agents, regardless of any selections made at the
account level, and cannot be turned off.

To turn on sender authentication


In Admin Center, click
Channels in the sidebar, then select Talk and email > Email.
In the Email settings section, select Authenticate
emails received with SPF, DKIM, and DMARC
alignment.
Select an option: Minimal, Native traffic,
or Native and forwarded traffic. Zendesk
recommends turning on this feature for Native
traffic first, then testing to ensure that
Native and forwarded traffic isn't
suspending traffic that should arrive with
authentication verified.


Minimal: Basic protection across your
Zendesk account that protects both native and
forwarded email, suspending only emails that are
blatant spoof attempts.

Native traffic: DMARC authentication is
supported for emails sent directly to native
Zendesk support addresses by end users.

Native and forwarded traffic: Zendesk
runs authentication checks on email traffic
forwarded to Zendesk, leveraging ARC headers and
authentication results from the forwarding
address.


Click Save.


Emails that don't pass this type of authentication are suspended. You can
view them in your Suspended tickets
view. Tickets suspended for failing to pass authentication
have Failed email authentication as the cause of suspension.
Be very careful recovering these, as they may not be from the sender
listed in the email.



Checking for suspensions

After you turn on this feature, it's important to monitor your Suspended tickets view
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.
To check your Suspended tickets view


In Zendesk Support, click the Views ( ) icon in the
sidebar and then click the Suspended tickets
view. You can arrange the view by Cause of
suspension to make identifying issues
easier.




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 Zendesk Customer
Support.



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