SPF

SPF is a method to validate the sending IP address for a domain. The DNS Administrator needs to create an SPF record for their domain. If no SPF records exist for a domain, then the event does not fire.

Level 1

Sender Policy Framework can be used with the GWIA and SMTP interfaces. Sender Policy Framework, (SPF) attempts to verify the sender of each email message, which can eliminate spoofed email and most backscatter attacks. For SPF to work correctly, the sending domain must have an updated SPF record set up in DNS. If the sending domain does not have a SPF record set in their DNS, then their mail will not be blocked. Setting up a correct SPF record will block messages from spammers who are pretending to be you, to your system.

To use SPF on a GWIA interface, you must correctly specify which line in the header of mail messages is to be used. If the mail system is using a relay or proxy which adds a line to the message, then you should set SPF to use the second line (2), otherwise, the line used should be set to one (1), which is the default.

SPF can be configured to perform connection blocks in conjunction with the SMTP interface, which drops the receiving connection of a message before the message transfer is complete, if the sending server fails to be verified by SPF. This saves bandwidth as well as denying the messages from spammers.