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Approved sender feature update

On August 10, 2020, the Approved Sender feature was enhanced to reduce exposure to phishing attacks and email address impersonators.

The legacy system only used SPF to authenticate the sender. The problem is that SPF focuses on the authenticity of the "Return Path", which is mostly invisible to the recipient of the message.

The new system utilizes more advanced technologies, including DMARC, DKIM, and SPF to determine the authenticity of the sender. By default, a sender must pass at least one of these authentication checks before they will be identified as a valid Approved Sender. Additionally, their message must originate from a server that has been identified as a "trusted source" of mail.

There are 4 ways that the source of a message can be authenticated:

  1. Message passes DMARC authentication
  2. The message passes SPF and the senders' From address and Return-path address are aligned (e.g. the message was sent from the sender's own server).
  3. The message passes DKIM and the senders' From address and DKIM-signer are aligned
  4. The message came from a source that you have identified as "trusted" (such as a third-party mailer).
Last updated September 13, 2021