On Mon 25/Apr/2022 05:56:46 +0200 Scott Kitterman wrote:

How about something like this:

9.7 Determination of the Organizational Domain For Relaxed Alignment

DMARC evaluation for relaxed alignment is highly sensitive to errors in the
determination of the organizational domain if the RFC5322.From domain does not
have a published policy.  If an incorrectly selected organizational domain is
a parent of the correct organizational domain, then relaxed alignment could
potentially allow a malicious sender to obtain DMARC PASS.  This potential
exists for both the legacy [RFC 7489] and current [Section 4.8] methods for
determining the organizational domain.


I object that this text undermines the robustness of the protocol and may sound like a campaign for strict alignment. Relaxed alignment is safer from a flexibility POV, as it accounts for occasional @hostname.example.com. It has played a relevant role in DMARC success, and it's not by chance the default.

Here's an alternative text:

    DMARC evaluation for relaxed alignment is sensitive to errors in the
    determination of the organizational domain due to erroneous DNS settings by
    either the organizational domain or its PSD parent.  If the PSD parent is
    incorrectly selected as organizational domain, then relaxed alignment can
    potentially allow a malicious sender to obtain DMARC PASS while
    impersonating the relevant organization.  This potential exists for both
    the legacy [RFC 7489] and current [Section 4.8] methods for determining the
    organizational domain.


This issue is completely avoided by use of strict alignment and publishing
DMARC records for all domains/sub-domains used as RFC5322.From domain in an
organization's email.


   or by publishing psd=n.


For cases where strict alignment is not appropriate, this issue can be
mitigated by periodically checking the DMARC records, if any, of PSDs above
the organization's domains in the DNS tree and (for legacy [RFC 7489] checking
that appropriate PSL entries remain present).  If a PSD domain publishes a
DMARC record without the appropriate psd=y tag, organizational domain owners
can add psd=n to their organizational domain's DMARC record so that the PSD
record will not be incorrectly evaluated to be the organizational domain.


The latter alternative is obviously easier than monitoring the DNS settings of the PSD parent, and has to be carried out anyway in case.


Best
Ale
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