Email Security Audit Tool – Check SPF, DMARC & Email Security Risk

Analyze your domain’s email authentication configuration and identify potential email security weaknesses.

What Is an Email Security Audit?

An email security audit is a structured assessment of a domain’s email configuration to identify security weaknesses and authentication problems.

Business email depends on several DNS-based controls to help receiving mail servers determine whether messages are coming from legitimate sources. To understand how these systems work together, see our guide to how email works with DNS. When these controls are missing, weak, or incorrectly configured, attackers may have an easier time attempting domain impersonation, while legitimate businesses may also experience email authentication and deliverability problems.

An email security audit examines these configurations and turns technical DNS information into understandable security findings.

Instead of simply showing you raw DNS records, an audit helps answer questions such as:

• Is the domain configured to receive email?
• Does the domain have an SPF policy?
• How strictly does SPF handle unauthorized senders?
• Does the domain have a DMARC policy?
• Are there email authentication weaknesses that should be reviewed?
• What actions could improve the domain’s email security posture?

Why Email Security Matters for Businesses

Email is one of the most important communication channels for businesses. Companies use email to communicate with customers, employees, suppliers, partners, financial institutions, and other organizations.

That makes business email infrastructure an important security consideration.

Reduce Domain Spoofing Risk

Email authentication mechanisms help receiving systems distinguish legitimate messages from unauthorized messages claiming to come from your domain. A properly configured authentication policy can make domain impersonation more difficult.

Protect Business Communications

Weak or missing email authentication can create additional opportunities for phishing and impersonation attempts. Reviewing your domain configuration helps identify weaknesses before they become a larger business problem.

Improve Email Authentication

Email authentication is not only about security. Incorrect or incomplete configuration can affect how receiving mail systems evaluate messages sent from your domain.

Identify Configuration Weaknesses

Many small businesses use Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, hosting providers, marketing platforms, CRM systems, and other third-party services to send email. Over time, email infrastructure can become complicated.

An audit provides a quick way to identify important configuration issues that deserve attention.

What Does This Audit Check?

The Email Security Audit currently examines key DNS records associated with your domain’s email infrastructure.

SPF

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) specifies which servers and services are authorized to send email on behalf of a domain.

Our audit checks whether an SPF record exists and evaluates its policy. A weak or incorrectly configured SPF policy may reduce the effectiveness of email authentication. For more information, see Google’s guide to setting up SPF. For example, an SPF record ending with ~all uses a SoftFail policy, while -all indicates a stricter Fail policy.

A weak or incorrectly configured SPF policy may reduce the effectiveness of email authentication.

The audit identifies relevant SPF conditions and explains what they mean for your domain’s security posture.

DMARC

Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC) builds on email authentication mechanisms such as SPF and DKIM and allows domain owners to publish a policy describing how receiving systems should handle messages that fail authentication. For more information, see Google’s guide to setting up DMARC.

Our audit checks whether a DMARC record exists and evaluates its published policy.

Common DMARC policies include:

• p=none — monitoring without requesting rejection or quarantine
• p=quarantine — requests that failing messages be treated as suspicious
• p=reject — requests that failing messages be rejected

A stronger DMARC enforcement policy can provide greater protection against unauthorized use of a domain, although deployment should be planned carefully to avoid affecting legitimate email.

MX

Mail Exchange (MX) records identify the mail servers responsible for receiving email for a domain.

Our audit checks the domain’s MX configuration and determines whether mail infrastructure appears to be configured.

A domain without appropriate MX configuration may not be able to receive email normally.

How Our Email Security Audit Works

The audit is designed to turn technical DNS information into an understandable security assessment.

1. Enter Your Domain

Enter the business domain you want to analyze.

2. Check Email Infrastructure

The audit retrieves relevant DNS information associated with the domain, including MX, SPF, and DMARC records. If you’re new to DNS, our beginner’s guide to the Domain Name System explains how DNS connects domains to the services that power the internet.

3. Analyze Security Configuration

The system evaluates the available configuration and identifies conditions that may represent security weaknesses.

4. Generate Security Findings

Instead of returning only raw DNS records, the system explains detected issues using categories, severity levels, risks, descriptions, and recommendations.

5. Calculate a Security Score

The identified configuration issues are evaluated by the risk engine to produce an overall email security score.

6. Review Recommendations

The final report helps you understand which areas should be reviewed and what steps may improve the domain’s email security configuration.

Understanding Your Email Security Score

The Email Security Audit provides a simplified score representing the security posture identified during the audit.

A higher score generally indicates a stronger configuration based on the checks currently performed by the system, while a lower score indicates that more significant weaknesses were identified.

The score should be treated as a configuration risk indicator, not a guarantee of complete email security.

For example, an audit may identify:

Score: 85 / 100

Risk Level: Medium

Security Posture:

• MX — Configured
• SPF — Weak
• DMARC — Strong

The score is based on the findings detected by the current audit engine. As the Email Security Intelligence platform evolves, additional checks can be incorporated to provide a broader assessment.

Common Email Security Problems

Businesses can encounter a range of email authentication and configuration problems.

Missing SPF

A domain without an SPF record may lack an important mechanism for identifying authorized email senders.

Weak SPF Policy

An SPF record using SoftFail (~all) does not provide the same enforcement signal as a strict Fail (-all) policy.

However, SPF should not be changed blindly. Businesses should identify legitimate sending services before making authentication changes.

Missing DMARC

Without a DMARC record, a domain does not publish a DMARC policy to receiving mail systems.

Weak DMARC Enforcement

A DMARC policy of p=none is useful for monitoring and deployment, but it does not request quarantine or rejection of messages that fail DMARC.

Incorrect Email Infrastructure

Missing or unusual MX configuration can indicate that a domain’s email receiving infrastructure requires review.

Third-Party Email Services

Businesses often use multiple services to send email, including marketing platforms, CRM systems, support systems, and transactional email providers. These services need to be considered when configuring email authentication.

How Businesses Can Improve Email Security

Improving email security starts with understanding which services legitimately send and receive email for your domain.

1. Identify Legitimate Email Senders

Make a list of the services your business uses to send email. This may include your business email provider, marketing platform, CRM, customer-support system, and transactional email service.

2. Review SPF

Make sure your SPF record accurately represents legitimate sending sources and does not contain unnecessary or conflicting mechanisms.

3. Configure DKIM

DKIM adds a cryptographic signature to outgoing email and is an important component of modern email authentication. Your organization should configure DKIM through the email services it legitimately uses.

4. Deploy DMARC

Start by understanding your legitimate email sources and use DMARC monitoring to identify authentication issues before moving toward stronger enforcement.

5. Review Authentication Regularly

Email infrastructure changes as businesses adopt new providers and services. This is one reason DNS data can provide useful signals about a domain’s infrastructure. Learn more about how DNS data becomes actionable intelligence. An authentication configuration that was correct six months ago may require review after a provider or sending system changes.

6. Monitor Your Domain

A one-time audit provides a snapshot of your configuration. Businesses with important email infrastructure should consider periodic or continuous monitoring as their email environment changes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is an email security audit?

An email security audit examines important email and DNS configuration for a domain and identifies potential authentication and infrastructure weaknesses.

What does this email security audit check?

The current audit checks key email-related DNS configuration, including MX, SPF, and DMARC records. It evaluates these settings and generates security findings and a risk score.

Does the audit check DKIM?

The current version focuses on MX, SPF, and DMARC. DKIM is an important part of email authentication and can be incorporated into future versions of the audit engine.

Can I audit any domain?

You can enter a domain to analyze its publicly available email-related DNS configuration. The results depend on the DNS records that are publicly accessible for that domain.

Does a high score mean my business email is completely secure?

No. The score represents the configuration checks performed by the audit engine. A high score does not guarantee protection against phishing, malware, account compromise, business email compromise, or every other form of email attack.

Can this tool prevent phishing?

The audit itself does not prevent phishing. It identifies email authentication and configuration weaknesses that may contribute to domain impersonation risk. Businesses still need broader email security controls, user awareness, account protection, and monitoring.

How often should a business audit its email security?

Businesses should review email authentication whenever they introduce or remove email providers or sending services. Periodic audits can also help identify configuration changes and previously unnoticed weaknesses.

Is email security only a DNS problem?

No. DNS-based authentication is an important part of email security, but it is only one layer. Account security, endpoint protection, secure email gateways, user awareness, monitoring, and other controls also matter.