2024 Email Authentication Standards: Elevating Security with Google and Yahoo

In contemporary email communication, email authentication plays a pivotal role in mitigating email fraud, spam, and phishing attacks. Brace yourself for a new level of security. Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing robust email authentication requirements to combat harmful messages and emphasize the crucial role of data security. This measure aims to prevent restrictions on sending rates, message blocking, and marking messages as spam.

Who will experience the effects? 

The updated security guidelines apply to all users, particularly those who send 5000 or more than 5000 emails per day from ZOHO DESK. Not following these guidelines may lead to email delivery delays, blocked messages, or the categorization of emails as spam.

Not to worry. We are here to support you with the best possible solutions.

Basic details that every sender should be aware of

 

To safeguard your path in 2024, it is mandatory to follow the fundamental requirements, beginning with email authentications.

When utilizing a Gmail domain in the 'From' address, it is essential to configure the address with its dedicated SMTP for ensuring accurate mail delivery.

For recipients on gmail.com or googlemail.com, it is recommended to publish DMARC for the sender domain to enhance prompt mail delivery. 

Verify with your own SMTP 

In adherence to the new guidelines, reply emails sent from Zoho Desk with From addresses belonging to gmail.com, googlemail.com, to any domains may be bounced or marked as spam. Therefore, we kindly request all customers to configure these From addresses with your own SMTP verification and use TLS for transmitting email rather than Zoho SMTP. If the From addresses were verified previously with your own SMTP, we will continue using the same authentication for all notification emails sent from Zoho Desk.

Rolling out SPF & DKIM  

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) are vital email authentication protocols that protect against spam, phishing, and spoofing. SPF verifies the authenticity of emails from your domain, while DKIM confirms their source by validating authorized servers associated with sending domains. These protocols work together to validate emails, ensuring that they originate from legitimate sources and have not been tampered with during transmission. This implementation enhances the overall security of your email communications by reducing the risk of email spoofing, phishing, and other malicious activities. 

Minimal Spam Rate 

Maintain spam rates below 0.10% and ensure they never exceed 0.30% for optimal email deliverability.

More about Guidelines for all senders

Essential  Requirements for Users Sending 5000 or More Emails Daily 

Implement DMARC Policy 

DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication Reporting and Conformance) is an authentication technique that leverages the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) to authenticate emails. This helps in preventing forging emails and engaging in unauthorized activities through them.

 How DMARC Works: 

1: Publish the DMARC policy outlining instructions for mailbox providers' receiving servers on how to handle emails that breach the policy.

2: Authenticate your sender domain by implementing SPF and DKIM.

3: The receiving server will apply the DMARC policy and execute the instructions specified in the policy.

4: The receiving server will send a report detailing how it handled the email to the reporting email address specified in the DMARC record.

Sample: DMARC record

v=DMARC1\; p=none\; rua=mailto:dmarc-aggregate@mydomain.com\; ruf=mailto:dmarc-afrf@mydomain.com\; pct=100

v: Signifies the DMARC version in use.

p: Signifies the policy established by the business.

rua: Specifies the URI for sending a consolidated report, including information on SPF and DKIM validation results, details about the sending and receiving domains, and the percentage of successful authentications.

ruf: Specifies the email address where the comprehensive SPF/DKIM failure report will be delivered.

pct: Denotes the percentage of emails subject to the policy application.

To prevent emails from being marked as spam, bounced, or experiencing delays in delivery, it is mandatory to set your policy (p) to none in DMARC record. “p = none”

If the policy (p) is set to "quarantine" or "reject," the emails will either be redirected to the spam folder or will not be delivered to the recipient, respectively. 

Ensure DMARC Alignment 

DMARC alignment pertains to the uniformity in the alignment of email authentication mechanisms, particularly SPF (Sender Policy Framework) and DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail), with the domain asserted by the sender.

Sample DMARC - SPF Alignment

Sender Address	From: Header	Strict Alignment	Relaxed Alignment
support@mycompany.com	support@mycompany.com	Pass	Pass
support@admin. mycompany.com	support@mycompany.com	Fail	Pass
support@mycompany.org	support@mycompany.com	Fail	Fail

 

SPF Strict Alignment: A precise match between the SPF-authenticated domain and the domain specified in the header's "From:" address. 

SPF Relaxed Alignment: The domain indicated in the "From:" address of the header should either match or be a subdomain of the SPF-authenticated domain. 

Sample DMARC - DKIM Alignment

From: Header	DKIM d= domain	Strict Alignment	Relaxed Alignment
support@mycompany.com	mycompany.com	Pass	Pass
support@admin. mycompany.com	mycompany.com	Fail	Pass
support@mycompany.org	mycompany.com	Fail	Fail

DKIM Strict Alignment: A precise match between the relevant DKIM domain and the domain specified in the header's "From:" address. 

DKIM Relaxed Alignment: The domain mentioned in the "From:" address of the header must either coincide with or be a subdomain of the SPF-authenticated domain. 

Add ARC headers 

Implement ARC (Authenticated Received Chain) authentication to avoid Gmail categorizing the email as unauthenticated, especially when utilizing frequent mail forwarding practices.

For additional information on ARC authentication, please refer to the official Google document linked here.

Set up SPF & DKIM 

Mail authentication protocols such as SPF & DKIM should be implemented for organization sending emails to google or yahoo recipients.

Read more about Guidelines for Users Sending 5000 or More Emails Daily

What are the consequences if the deadline is not met? 

Adhering to the sender requirements before the deadline is crucial for optimizing email delivery. Failure to meet the criteria detailed in this article may lead to your email not reaching its destination as intended or being categorized as spam.

Quick Summary:

The Update - Gmail and Yahoo are implementing robust email authentication standards from February 2024.

The Effects - Failure to meet these requirements may result in emails being categorized as spam or not reaching their intended destination.

The Action to be taken - Users sending 5000 or more emails daily must implement SPF,  DKIM and publish DMARC policies. 

Regards,

Sumaya Howth - Product Manager

The Zoho Desk Team

• Topic Participants

• Sumaya Howth

  

• Stéphane LAMBERT

• Jeff | Zoho Desk

  

• Sticky Posts

• 2024 Email Authentication Standards: Elevating Security with Google and Yahoo

  In contemporary email communication, email authentication plays a pivotal role in mitigating email fraud, spam, and phishing attacks. Brace yourself for a new level of security. Starting February 2024, Gmail and Yahoo will be implementing robust email

• Using Agent Email Address as From Address

  Currently, while replying to a ticket, it is possible for agents to choose their own email addresses as 'from' addresses. Although we built this just for that little extra flexibility, in hindsight, it hasn't figured much in conventional usage.  Almost all businesses prefer that responses to their customers' tickets be sent from the common support/service email address and NOT from those of individual agents. During personal interactions at events, some of you have even made passing mentions about

• Edit and Delete options in Comments

  A lot of teams have been using ticket comments extensively to collaborate everyday. Notification Center further improved this experience by bringing real-time updates. As we continue to build more improvements to this experience, we've shipped a small-yet-important

• Webinar 2: Supercharged customer support for growing business

  Join us for this webinar and learn how to step up your support game using a real-time communication platform to generate happier, more successful customers. In this live webinar, we will will discuss the importance of SalesIQ for your support team and how it can help you:  Understand your customers better and their journeys to proactively support and engage them even before they ask for help.  Integrating real time conversations into Zoho Desk’s Support, providing a conversational customer service

• Customize Colors of your Customer Self Service Portal

  You asked for it. We heard you. We're happy to roll out the most sought after feature request, Customizing the Colors of your Customer Self-service Portal. Now you can set the color of your customer portal to mimic your company's web site, so that your customers visiting the portal will not feel alienated by the default theme.  Go ahead and configure the color of the header, tabs, fonts and background according to your needs. You can either choose between default color themes like Blue, Grey, Green

• Recent Topics

• Open Sans Font in Zoho Books is not Open Sans.

  Font choice in customising PDF Templates is very limited, we cannot upload custom fonts, and to make things worse, the font names are not accurate. I selected Open Sans, and thought the system was bugging, but no, Open Sans is not Open Sans. The real

• Is it possible to embed Zoho Bookmarks in the Cliq sidebar?

  Is there any way that each Zoho user can access their bookmarks (that live in https://bookmarks.zoho.eu/ which is technically a part of Zoho Mail) directly within Cliq? As a widget, or an item in the sidebar? My team does not use Mail, it uses Cliq all

• Show Attachments in the customer portal

  Hi, is it possible to show the Attachments list in the portal for the particular module? Bests.

• Kaizen #142: How to Navigate to Another Page in Zoho CRM using Client Script

  Hello everyone! Welcome back to another exciting Kaizen post. In this post, let us see how you can you navigate to different Pages using Client Script. In this Kaizen post, Need to Navigate to different Pages Client Script ZDKs related to navigation A.

• Navigate with Ease: Announcing Improvements to Your Zoho CRM for Everyone's Setup Experience

  Hello Everyone, We’re thrilled to announce new enhancements to the Setup Menu in our Zoho CRM for Everyone system, designed to simplify your workday and streamline your overall experience. What's New? Addition of a Setup Homepage Faster Search in Setup

• Zoho Projects Webhook fails with HTTP Error 0

  Hello Zoho Community, I am pulling my hair out over this one. I have setup a very basic http(s) server that always responds "ok" and code 200 to incoming GET requests. It will accept any parameters, and any path. Really, all it does is say "ok," and log

• ZOHO Campaignで表のカラムの幅を調整したい。

  表を作成した際、個々のカラムの幅を調整したいのですが、方法が分かりません。 どなたかご存じの方ご教示ください。

• Auto-upload Creator Files to WorkDrive

  Hi everyone, I’m working on a workflow that uploads files from Zoho Creator to specific subfolders in Zoho WorkDrive, as illustrated in the attached diagram. My Creator application form has two multi-file upload fields, and I want—on successful form submission—to

• Kaizen #129 : Client Script Support for Blueprints

  Hello everyone! Welcome to another week of Kaizen. Today, let us discuss about how you can use Client Script during a Blueprint transtion to meet your requirements. This Kaizen post will provide solution for the post - Need non-mandatory fields in blueprint

• Search Bar Improvement for Zoho Commerce

  Hey everyone, I've been using Zoho Commerce for a bit now, and I think the search bar could really use an upgrade. Right now, it doesn't show products in a dropdown as you type, which would make finding items a lot faster. On Shopify, for example, you

• Making digital signatures accessible to all: Introducing accessibility controls in Zoho Sign

  Hi there! At Zoho Sign, we are committed to building an inclusive digital experience for all our users. As part of our ongoing efforts to align with Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG), we’re updating the application with support that will go

• Account Owner Field From Accounts Module to be Displayed in Contacts module

  I have a field in the Accounts Module in the CRM called "Account Owner" i want that field to be also mapped into the Contacts Module custom single line field called "Account Manager".

• Update a field in the ZOHO Form, basis numeric value in another field in the same form

  I am trying to create a questionnaire in ZOHO, where clients need to answer 10 questions, and basis response, values are assigned. I have created a total score field where the sum of the values is stored. But i am unable to create a rule whereby another

• How to update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records

  Hello Zoho CRM, How do I update "Lead Status" to more than 100 records at once? To give you a background, these leads were uploaded or Imported at once but the lead status record was incorrectly chosen. So since there was a way to quickly add records in the system no matter how many they are, we are also wondering if there is a quicker way to update these records to the correct "Lead Status". I hope our concern makes sense and that there will be a fix for it. All the best, Jonathan

• Meet up de Zoho en Bilbao

  Buenos días comunidad! Estamos estudiando hacer un Meet up en Bilbao desde zoho y varios Partners. Para que la experiencia sea excelente, queremos saber cuantas pesonas se vendrían a Bilbao al evento. Y para que sea lo mas útil posible, que temas dentro

• Picklist reference value in REST

  picklist options can be configured to have a different reference value than the displayed one, should be helpful in things like multilanguage: https://help.zoho.com/portal/en/kb/crm/customize-crm-account/translations/articles/translations is there a way

• In Zoho inventory Converting sales return to cerdit note from using Api from Creator Error details: {"code":-1,"message":"Invalid Sales Return ID."}

  In Zoho inventory Converting sales return to cerdit note from using Api from Creator Error details: {"code":-1,"message":"Invalid Sales Return ID."} this is button Function used in the Creator map Inventory.Create_Credit_note(int CRE_ID) { return_value

• Marketing Tip #2: Recover lost sales with abandoned cart emails

  Did you know most online shoppers don’t complete checkout? Automated cart recovery emails are an easy way to bring them back. A simple reminder can recover sales you’d otherwise lose. Try this today: Enable abandoned cart emails in Zoho Commerce and set

• Billing Management: #9 Usage Billing in IoTs

  We live in a world where connectivity has become a lifestyle rather than a luxury. From smart thermostats that adjust your home's temperature to GPS trackers monitoring end-to-end fleets and sensors that optimize energy grids, the Internet of Things has

• {"code":1038,"message":"JSON is not well formed"}

  Today this began failing: sales_order_data = zoho.books.createRecord("salesorders",books_organization_ID,order_data); with this error message. {"code":1038,"message":"JSON is not well formed"} This code has been running for two years. Here is the input

• How can I migrate Shared Mailbox from Zoho Mail to Team Inbox?

  I am unable to migrate mails from my shared mailbox in Zoho Mail to Team Inbox. I am the super admin of my Zoho One plan and yet I am getting an error saying only admins can do this? I don't understand the issue.

• Remember all the ways we've posted?

  The world celebrates World Postal Day in 2025 with the theme “#PostForPeople: Local Service. Global Reach". The story of the “post” is a story of human connection itself, evolving from simple handwritten notes carried over long distances to instant digital

• Can no longer upload my own Notebook cover

  I've had Notebook for over a year and have been able to create my own notebook covers, but when I tried to upload my own cover for a new notebook today, the upload feature has suddenly been starred, requiring me to upgrade my account. When did this

• Zoho Desk - Cannot Invite or Register New User

  Hi who may concern, we encountered a problem that we cannot invite user or the visitor cannot register for a user at all through our help center portal, with the snapshot shown as below and the attachement. It always pops up that "Sorry, Unable to process

• Custom domain issue

  I recently changed records for my support area custom domain for a few months, I then wanted to come back to Zoho, but now I can't connect it and I can't login as it's having an SSL issue. I cannot get a good response from support, as I've been notified

• How do you generate personalized certificates and save them in dynamic folders using Writer's mail merge?

  Zoho Writer's mail merge feature can help you enhance the certificate management process. It's a great way to save time and effort! Merge certificates and maintain a well-organised repository with personalised certificates stored in separate folders for

• Zoho Editor

  Zoho PDf Editor is not working I am clicking on EDIT PDf then it again bringing me back to the same page. again and again.

• The present is a "present"

  The conversation around mental health has been gaining attention in recent years. Even with this awareness, we often feel stuck; the relentless pace of modern life makes us too busy to pause, reflect, and recharge. In the world of customer support, this

• Market cap

  Market cap formula?? Kaise nikale

• Mail and OS

  Jai Hind! Zoho is doing good by creating good software (made in india) on par with other tech giants. 🥰 Suggestion: 1. Whenever we sign up on zoho mail its asking for other mail id. It shouldn't be like that. You should ask general details of a user

• Need Help to setup plugs along with codeless bot buidler. To send sms OTPs to users via Zoho Voice and to verify it

  Need Help to setup plugs along with codeless bot buidler. To send sms OTPs to users via Zoho Voice and to verify it. I get leads from our website and we need to make sure those are not junk. So we are using proactive chat bot and we need mobile OTPs to

• Direct Integration Between Zoho Cliq Meetings and Google Calendar

  Dear Zoho Team, We’d like to submit the following feature request based on our current use case and the challenges we’re facing: 🎯 Feature Request: Enable meetings scheduled in Zoho Cliq to be automatically added to the host's Google Calendar, not just

• Zoho sheet

  Unable to share zoho sheet with anyone on internet with editer option only view option is show

• Personal account created under org account

  Hi there, I am Jayesh. We are using ME Central, and we have an account by the email ID soc@kissht.com.. Now I have created a personal account., jayesh.auti@zohomail.in, accidentally. Can you help me to remove this jayesh.auti@zohomail.in from my organization

• Add another account

  How to add another mail account to my zoho mail.

• Recover deleted user

  Hi by mistake i have deleted an added user and his email associated. Please help me recover it thank you.

• No connection to the server

  Hello! I can't add a new email address to my mailbox because your server is rejecting me. Please help. I took and added a screenshot of this problem Marek Olbrys

• Emails missing from desktop but visible on phone

  Subject says it all. Windows 11 laptop. Apple phone. all systems up to date.

• Website Hosting

  Hello, I want to host my domain on Hostinger, and I want my emails to run through Zoho Mail. Please provide me with the SPF record, MX record (Type: TXT), and A record, so that I don’t face any issues with my emails. My website is on Hostinger hosting,

• Can not search zoho mail after update V.1.7.0

  i can not search mail on to and cc box from attached picture and then search contacts box can't click or use anything. include replay mail too.

• Next Page