What happens if DMARC fails?
When DMARC authentication fails, your specific DMARC policy dictates what happens to that email. Emails can then be monitored, sent to spam, or completely blocked, all while valuable insights are continuously reported back to you for ongoing security.
If DMARC fails, the receiving server would typically comply with the policy that you have specified in your DMARC record.
p=none | If you are in report-only mode (p=none) the email will be accepted by the receiving server and scanned by other filtering criteria. |
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p=quarantine | If you are in quarantine mode (p=quarantine) the email will be quarantined and typically sent to the spam folder of the recipient. |
p=reject | If you are in reject mode (p=reject) the receiving server will abort the connection with the sending mail server and the email will never reach the end user. |
Regardless of the policy, the metadata for the email, along with the authentication results, is logged and forwarded to the DMARC report processor for analysis and ongoing security monitoring.
If you would like to learn more about how DMARC Reports can help you understand your DMARC policy results, visit our 101domain blog article, All about DMARC reports.