SPF, which is short for Sender Policy Framework, is an email protection system, that is employed to verify whether an e-mail message is sent by a certified server. Using SPF protection for a domain name will stop the counterfeiting of email addresses generated with the domain. In layman's terms: activating this feature for a domain generates a special record in the Domain Name System (DNS) which contains the IP of the servers that are allowed to send email messages from mailboxes under the domain. As soon as this record propagates worldwide, it will exist on all of the DNS servers that direct the Internet traffic. When a new email message is sent, the first DNS server it goes through verifies if it comes from an authorized server. If it does, it's forwarded to the destination address, however when it doesn't come from a server listed in the SPF record for the domain, it is discarded. Thus nobody can mask an e-mail address to make it look as if you're e-mailing spam. This technique is also identified as email spoofing.
SPF Protection in Website Hosting
If you host your domains in a website hosting account with us and we manage the e-mails for them, you'll be able to enable SPF protection for any of them with several clicks in your Hepsia Control Panel. The service is available in its own section where you will be able to view which domain names are currently protected. For those which aren't, you'll be able to activate the SPF protection service and configure a lot of things during this process - the hostnames of the mail servers that are allowed to send messages from your e-mail addresses, the IPv4 and IPv6 addresses of these servers, and even to set a rule that messages can be sent only if your domains include our MX records. The last choice is the most secure one, but you can use it if we handle the email addresses for your domains and you're not using some other e-mail provider. The newly created records will propagate within 24 hours and nobody will be able to fake the FROM field in an email with your email addresses.
SPF Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
The SPF protection feature comes with all the Linux semi-dedicated hosting, so in case you host your domain names in an account on our cloud hosting platform, you can use the service easily for all your domains. The Hepsia Control Panel, which comes with the semi-dedicated accounts, has a really intuitive interface, which means that you do not have to be proficient in the use of computers to secure your e-mail addresses. You will only have to type the hostname and the IP of each mail server that you would like to be certified to send out e-mails from your addresses and right after that the updated record will be active for the domain name that you've chosen. As a further option, we also give you the ability to limit your outgoing e-mail messages and protect your mailboxes further by permitting e-mail messages to be sent only if the domain name involved contains our MX records i.e. the email messages for the domain name should be handled on our end and not by a different provider. Thus you'll get even better control and there will not be any chance for someone to forge your email addresses for malicious activities.