DMARC Email Security Compliance

February 23, 2024 | News & Announcements

Major email providers have announced that they have started enforcing DMARC/DKIM/SPF email security standards in order to send email to them. What that means to us is that external email providers will increasingly block or mark as spam email coming from UCI unless this email security standard is fully implemented. This is to ensure that all email where the “from” address is “uci.edu” are not being spoofed but rather being sent from a UCI-approved service.

OIT is implementing changes to OIT-managed email services to comply with these standards.

If you are using a 3rd party service to send bulk emails as “uci.edu” (such as Constant Contact, MailChimp, SendGrid, etc), please contact the OIT Security Team at security@uci.edu to help get your 3rd party service configured properly.

OIT is also offering Proofpoint Secure Email Relay (SER) for campus services that require an email relay.  SER allows the relay of any uci.edu or uci.edu subdomain email to any recipient.  SER sent emails are fully DMARC, DKIM, SPF compliant.  SER is available in two options:

Authenticated SMTP in the cloud

If your application or server can support authenticated SMTP, this is the preferred method.

Requirements:

  • Authenticated SMTP (SMTP AUTH PLAIN or LOGIN)
  • Port 25 (STARTTLS required), port 465 (SMTPS), port 587 (STARTTLS required)
  • TLS v1.2+
  • Able to connect to smtp-us.ser.proofpoint.com

On-campus network SMTP relay

If your application can not support authenticated SMTP or can not reach the Internet, this on-campus service can relay the email to SER.

Requirements:

  • Unauthenticated SMTP only, no support for authenticated SMTP
  • Port 25 (STARTTLS optional)
  • TLS v1.2+
  • Able to connect to ser.service.uci.edu, a round-robin A record to ser1.service.uci.edu [128.200.151.76] and ser2.service.uci.edu [128.200.91.82]

Please contact the OIT Security Team at security@uci.edu to setup your application or server to use Proofpoint Secure Email Relay.

Alerts

Fraudulent bank accounts hit UCI community

Sent on 8/30/2023 to All Campus Employees and Students by the Office of Data and Information Technology UCI Information Security reports “a new wave of fraudulent activity” tied to Chime and Go2Bank. Unauthorized accounts have been opened using UCI members’ personal...

Chime and Go2Bank Fraudulent Activity

We have seen a new wave of fraudulent activity related to UCI members coming from Chime and Go2Bank. This includes accounts being opened using a UCI member's personal information by unauthorized individuals, and getting notified of that via their UCI email, personal...

News & Announcements

Data Disposal Day – October 25, 2023

Date: Wednesday, October 25, 2023 Time: 8:00 AM- 12:00 PM (or until truck hits full capacity) Location: Parking Lot 12A near the Natural Sciences buildings Each of us is responsible for the security of information assets with which we work. Properly...

Cybersecurity Awareness Month 2023

October is Cybersecurity Awareness Month! The month was originally created through a collaboration with the National Cyber Security Alliance and the Department of Homeland Security. Feel free to check out the events and resources listed below. Events Data Disposal Day...