Global Cyber Alliance Releases First DMARC Leaderboard Measuring the Global Deployment of Critical Anti-Phishing and Anti-Spoofing Tool

BRUSSELS, Nov. 19, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) today released the first interactive tool that allows consumers, businesses and governments to measure and quantify the deployment of the Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) email security protocol, a solution that prevents email scammers and criminals from "spoofing" legitimate email domains. The launch of the GCA DMARC Leaderboard took place during a symposium cohosted by GCA and the Cybersecurity Tech Accord. The event brought policy makers and industry leaders together to discuss existing and emerging efforts being undertaken by governments and industry to improve the security, stability and resilience of cyberspace.

The GCA DMARC Leaderboard currently provides intelligence on more than 500,000 email domains and enables users to rank DMARC usage by country, industry and DMARC policy level. GCA expects the tool to provide DMARC intelligence on more than 10 million email domains by the first quarter of 2019. Visit GCA's website to view the leaderboard: https://leaderboard.dmarc.globalcyberalliance.org.

DMARC is an email authentication policy and reporting protocol that helps prevent impersonation attacks via email. The DMARC policy is free to use, and DMARC protection is already included on most of the major consumer email services such as Gmail, Yahoo, and Microsoft 365. However, use of DMARC by government, the private sector and other organisations operating their own email is low, which puts their email domains at risk of being spoofed and used for fraudulent purposes.

"Sunlight remains the best disinfectant," said Philip Reitinger, president and CEO of GCA. "The GCA DMARC Leaderboard offers a way to compare countries, sectors and companies as to their progress in deploying email spoofing protections, and we hope it helps lead to universal adoption of DMARC. Using DMARC to prevent email domain spoofing is essential as an anti-phishing measure. "

Businesses in all sectors and of all sizes are struggling to combat business email compromise (BEC) scams. The FBI's Internet Complaint Center (IC3) estimated in July that BEC scams have accounted for $12.5 billion dollars (USD) in losses around the world in the last five years. DMARC's power to reduce BEC, and provide a significant return on investment to companies that deploy it, is demonstrated by new research from GCA. The report, which was released last month, shows the 1,046 domains that have implemented DMARC at quarantine or reject using GCA's DMARC Setup Guide will save an estimated $19 million to $66 million dollars by limiting BEC for the year of 2018 alone.  These organisations will continue to reap that reward every year in which they maintain the deployment of DMARC. If these 1,046 domains maintain DMARC for 5 years, the cumulative savings is likely to exceed $100 million.

About the Global Cyber Alliance
The Global Cyber Alliance (GCA) is an international, cross-sector effort dedicated to eradicating cyber risk and improving our connected world. We achieve our mission by uniting global communities, implementing concrete solutions, and measuring the effect.  Learn more at www.globalcyberalliance.org.

CONTACT: Adam Benson, adam@vrge.us

SOURCE Global Cyber Alliance