Microsoft Announces Strict DMARC Enforcement
Following Google and Yahoo’s similar announcement, more than a year ago, Microsoft has announced they will require properly configured DMARC, in order to send email to Microsoft’s consumer email domains (Outlook.com, Live.com, and Hotmail.com), beginning in May, 2025.
DMARC is an email authentication protocol that, together with SPF and DKIM, makes it easier to determine whether or not a given message is legitimately from the sender, and what to do if it isn’t. It is designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing.
Widomaker can help you enable SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your business email domain, even if the domain is not hosted with us. We are email deployment experts. Contact us today, by telephone or email, to discuss this with an email expert!
[Resolved] Email Connection Issue Sept 17 2024
3:00 PM – We are aware of an issue affecting some Widomaker email accounts. Customers who have an @widomaker.com (or @tni.net) email address may be affected. Additionally, some business customers using Widomaker’s “Enhanced Email” with their own domain name, may also be affected. Customers whose email is hosted on our Plesk servers are NOT affected.
Additional details from our server provider may be found at the link/button, below…
Incident Report: Cluster B – Webmail Login, mail client connect
3:30 PM – This incident is now resolved.
Operation Endgame – 300 Widomaker.com Email Accounts Found Among 16.5M Compromised Accounts
What Happened?
Between May 27 and May 29, 2024, an international law enforcement operation, Operation Endgame, seized over 100 cybercrime servers worldwide. It’s being called the largest ever operation against botnets.
Approximately 300 (active and inactive) @widomaker.com email accounts, and passwords, were identified as having been potentially compromised for use by the Endgame cybercrime groups, sometime during the time period the groups were active. This means the affected users’ passwords were potentially compromised via remote access trojans (RATs) or info-stealers (malware installed on the users’ computers). To find out more, review the article and video, from Microsoft, about How malware can infect your PC…
According to Spamhaus, “The botnet operators in question relied on compromised accounts to target victims and spread malicious emails. If a receiver interacted with one of these emails, it is highly likely that their device was infected. As a result, they probably became part of the targeted botnets.”
More details on Operation Endgame may be found at the links below…
- [Bleeping Computer] Police seize over 100 malware loader servers, arrest four cybercriminals
- [Krebs on Security] ‘Operation Endgame’ Hits Malware Delivery Platforms
- [Europol] Largest ever operation against botnets hits dropper malware ecosystem
- [Troy Hunt / Have I Been Pwned (HIBP)] Operation Endgame
What Should I Do?
The easiest way to tell if your email address is in the Operation Endgame data, or other data breaches, is to sign up, for free, to be notified when your email address appears in known data breaches, or is found, via law enforcement action, to be compromised, like in the case of Operation Endgame. The Have I Been Pwned notification service is free to individuals. Visit the HIBP website, via the link below, then click “Notify me” to sign up for notifications.
Most importantly, if you find that your email address(es) is/are in the Operation Endgame data, or other data breaches, you should scan your computers (or other devices) for malware, and reset the passwords of the affected email accounts to prevent further abuse. You may Contact our office for assistance.
Help Keep Thunderbird Alive!
If you use the free Thunderbird email application, consider supporting them so that it remains free and available to everyone…
Thunderbird’s mission is to offer a time and privacy-respecting, customizable communication experience that gives you control of your data and experience. Free to everyone!
Accomplishing that mission means keeping Thunderbird secure, maintaining complex server infrastructure, updating old code, fixing bugs and developing new features. These activities aren’t cheap – requiring talented software engineers and robust infrastructure.
So today we’re asking you to help us out. If you get value from using Thunderbird, please consider giving a donation to support it!
Why Businesses and Domain Owners Should Implement DMARC Before February 2024
Do you send email using your own domain name? If so, there is something you should know about and it may affect your ability to reach your email audience.
Starting in February of 2024, Google and Yahoo will require most email senders to use DMARC in order to send email to Google or Yahoo recipients. This means that if you want your emails to be delivered to Google or Yahoo recipients, you need to properly enable DMARC for your business email domain.
DMARC is an email authentication protocol that, together with SPF and DKIM, makes it easier to determine whether or not a given message is legitimately from the sender, and what to do if it isn’t. It is designed to give email domain owners the ability to protect their domain from unauthorized use, commonly known as email spoofing.
By implementing DMARC, you increase the likelihood that your emails are delivered to your customers’ inboxes, and not marked as spam or rejected. This will help you maintain a good email sending reputation.
Widomaker can help you enable SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your business email domain, even if the domain is not hosted with us. We are email deployment experts. Contact us today, by telephone or email, to discuss this with an email expert!
Widomaker will soon start enforcing a new DMARC policy of “quarantine” on email from widomaker.com addresses
Dear Widomaker Users,
To further enhance email security, and comply with recently announced requirements from several large email providers, including Google and Yahoo, we are announcing an important update regarding our DMARC policy enforcement for widomaker.com and tni.net. This announcement only affects customers with an email address ending in @widomaker.com or @tni.net. There is a separate announcement concerning web and email hosting customers with their own custom domain names.
To find out what DMARC is, and how it can affect whether your email reaches the Inbox of your recipients, continue reading…
Continue reading
Is your hosted email domain ready for Google’s & Yahoo’s DMARC requirements?
Starting in February of 2024, Google, Yahoo, and others, will begin requiring that DMARC, SPF, and DKIM, be properly set up on your domain name, if you will be sending email, from your email domain, to them. DMARC, SPF, and DKIM, help authenticate email senders by verifying that the emails came from the domain that they claim to be from.
You can check your domain name, to see if DMARC has already been set up, by using this DMARC Check tool.
Contact us, to set up an appointment, to review your domain, and make sure DMARC is properly set up, so you don’t have trouble sending email to those providers beginning in 2024.
Thunderbird 115 Update Coming Soon
Do you use the Thunderbird email software? During the next several weeks, you should begin to see your installation of Thunderbird 102 automatically update to Thunderbird 115. Thunderbird users may wish to read more about what’s new in the updated Thunderbird so they are not surprised by the update. Details may be found on Thunderbird’s Blog, with the most recent post linked below…
Source: Getting Started With The Main Window Of Thunderbird 115
Email Server Maintenance on Monday, June 26, 2023
We have received notification from our email server provider of upcoming maintenance. This may affect customers with widomaker.com (or tni.net) email addresses, as well as customers, with their own custom domain names, using our Enhanced Email hosting services. This maintenance will NOT affect customers with email hosted on our Plesk hosting servers.
On Monday, June 26, 2023, from 12:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. EDT, we will be performing service migration work and […] improvements. We are expecting 5 to 15 minutes of downtime during the migration as we need to restart our services. Requests made during this downtime window will fail, and you’ll want to reattempt them once services are restored. We do not expect any other service impacts or downtime.
Why you might want an email client in the era of webmail • The Register
We suspect that some people might ask be asking themselves: “who uses a local email client in 2023. Doesn’t everybody use webmail these days?”
Source: Why you might want an email client in the era of webmail • The Register
