Why doesn't O365 produce DMARC reporting?

[Scott Brown]

Hi All,

We're working through DMARC for our org, and I'm trying to understand why O365 doesn't produce DMARC reporting for mail it receives - that can be consumed and analysed?

I've spoken to a couple of people at MS and have gotten a response that revolves around relying on other email providers DMARC reporting (like Gapps etc).  

We are getting reporting from all other large email providers that produce it, however we have a massive blind spot for all O365 email traffic - both to our tenant but also anyone else using O365.

Given the prevalence of large corps using O365 - I can't quite wrap my head around why this isn't a bigger thing.  

Is there anyone that can shed some light on why this is the case - or better yet if we could somehow get O365 producing DMARC reporting?

Cheers,

Scotty

[#2 · Accepted solution]

Hi Scott,

This has been asked for a very long time - I had customers as far back as 2012 asking for it when I started doing large scale migrations to Office 365. As expected there is a Uservoice open for it.

https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/264636-general/suggestions/11094318-dmarc-aggregate-reports-f...

When Microsoft themselves implemented DMARC they used Agari for the reports. There was quite a well known blog series by Terry Zink on it at the time. Whilst they ended up introducing DKIM into the EOP service on top of SPF and began using DMARC - even to the point of instructing how to put together a DMARC record and tightening it over time, they never got involved in the reporting side of things. Agari was usually recommended for enterprise size clients whilst DMARCIAN was recommended for SMB.

They never explained exactly they never got into DMARC reporting. I guess this is something to vote for on the Uservoice to try and push it to their attention. It would make complete sense - and even more to analyse that in Power BI.

Hope I have answered your question.

Best, Chris

[#3]

Thanks Chris - the extra info/context is super helpful.

We have a tool in place (like Agari) to aggregate the reporting to then use in building out our SPF and DKIM setup in prep for DMARC - we're just missing so much not having reporting/telemetry coming from O365 and feeding into the tool we use.

I'm not ready to give up on this one just yet - so will keep poking to see if I can get something more.

Cheers,

Scotty

[#4]

Any news on Dmarc reporting from Microsoft/O365?

[#5]

seems Microsoft made a solution with a 3rd party, here's a blog post https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2019/06/03/secure-cloud-free-dmarc-monitoring-office-365/

[#6]

@MathBSQ 

Valimail is a reporting tool (similar to something like Dmarcian), this doesn't address the issue of Microsoft not sending DMARC reports. 

For example I run HelpScout as a help desk for one business, DKIM, SPF and DMARC are all configured. I can see that Google, Yahoo, etc. are receiving emails from Helpscout and they are passing and domain aligned. Great.

But then a customer tells me the emails are going to his junk folder, I check and he is on Office365...

I have no visibility from Microsoft servers if they are happy with the email authentication or not. I assume they are, but I have no idea. I also have no idea if anyone is trying to spoof our domain to Office365 users.

The same problem if I am helping other clients not on Office365 with their deliverability...

I just don't understand why Microsoft wouldn't comply with the DMARC reporting like all the othe big providers?

[#7]

Thanks @Christopher Hoard 

My question is less about report aggregation (like Agari) and more about MS producing DMARC failure and aggregate reports from O365 (like Gsuite and others do) that are sent to whoever we specifcy in our DMARC record so we can then do the aggregation.

Without DMARC reporting generated from O365 - we're missing a huge amount of data/visibiltiy into what is passing and failing our DMARC records.

[#8]

Sure, it's been asked for a long time. There are multiple uservoices on it including this

https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/289138-office-365-security-compliance/suggestions/36016783-vi...

I can't give you any significant or pertinent reason why Microsoft have not pushed this more, especially considering they baked DKIM into the Exchange Admin Centre and SPF goes on in standard custom domain checks. I would like to see this functionality but have been asked about it since at least 2014 when CSP was first introduced - any probably longer! So whilst there are uservoices then I would say that's probably not going to be picked up anytime soon so you may also want to raise it at future AMA's, etc.

Best, Chris

[#9]

Thanks @Christopher Hoard 

Yeah, no problems.  I've tried the last couple of times I was in Redmond to find the right person within O365 to understand where this sits but haven't had a huge amoutn of luck.

Apprecaite the responses.

Cheers!

[#10]

@Christopher Hoard 

This Uservoice is currently #7 in General... 

https://office365.uservoice.com/forums/264636-general/suggestions/11094318-dmarc-aggregate-reports-f...

General is probably not the best place for it, but surely that should get it some attention?

I feel like a few high profile tech/security reporters need to write up a scathing article or 3 about about this to get some traction...

[#11]

Ars Technica? Anyone know anyone there, or other similar blogs that may get read by people at Microsoft? Crazy stuff that an organisation that is so central to tech as a whole does not implement this simple report feature.

[#12]

@Scott Brown 

I have the answer. They used to offer reporting but turned it off. many have asked for it to be re-enabled.  https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252466778/NCSC-calls-out-Microsoft-over-Dmarc-reports

There is a solution from OnDMARC. they have written an O365 reporting module that sends the DMARC fail data to the OnDMARC reporting tool in a special tab.

https://blog.redsift.com/email/dmarc/uncover-your-blind-spots-the-only-o365-reporting-module-for-dma...

Hope that helps.

[#13]

@Mark Penney 
"Valimail is a reporting tool (similar to something like Dmarcian), this doesn't address the issue of Microsoft not sending DMARC reports. "
This seems odd, as Microsoft promotes this service and Valimail says it completes O365. And their service is free specially for O365 customers!
Just made an account with them, waiting for any data to appear to the dashboard. 
If this works, it tells that MS is letting the reports to certain partners, but not all. Then we might discuss about visibility and equality....

[#14]

Does anybody know of any updates to this thread with respect to Office365 sending out aggregate DMARC reports ?

[#15]

@dolce-anthonyhave you seen this - https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2021/09/01/get-free-dmarc-visibility-with-valimail-authentic... "September 1, 2021 Get free DMARC visibility with Valimail Authenticate and Microsoft Office 365"

[#16]

Unfortunately this isn't quite what we are discussing here. The issues is that Microsoft as an ESP is not sending DMARC reports as per senders DMARC record. This is useful so you can tell if you are running into problems with authentication when sending to Microsoft, and to see if people are trying to spoof your domain sending to Microsoft.

What you are talking about is just MS365 customers and of limited scope.

[#17]

I sent a private message to somebody at Microsoft and they also responded with this same link which made me wonder if office365 is sending aggregate reports to valimail but not other aggregate vendors like Mxtoolbox which we use.

[#18]

@Scott Brown 

Maybe there's an internal disagreement about how to describe DKIM failures on reports?    

On normal dmarc reports, Microsoft's default dkim signing approach for O365 would look problematic.   However, their default dkim approach seems to work well for O365 clients who are just emailing other O365 clients (as long as the mail doesn't have to go through a 3rd party spam filter along the way).  

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/security/office-365-security/use-dkim-to-validate-out...

[#19]

@Mark Penney / @Scott Brown 

Valimail offers a free reporting service to any M365 customer which provides excellent visibility into your current DMARC posture (reference this June 3, 2019 Microsoft Cloud security guest blog post  as well as this Valimail DMARC visibility is free with Valimail Monitor page). 

With a paid Valimail Enforce license, you can gain DMARC insights for mail received by your Exchange Online tenant by enabling the Valimail Mailbox Connector to at least partially overcome the shortcomings of Microsoft not generating DMARC reporting data in the normal manner. While it would be best to have DMARC reporting from all M365 recipients, this does give you visibility into mail received by your own tenant(s). 

[DISCLAIMER: I have utilized the free Valimail Monitor DMARC reporting tool in my own (personal) tenant for many years, as well as set it up for several small non-profit organizations I have worked with, to help them get to DMARC enforcement. We also enabled Valimail Monitor for my employer's tenant when our previous provider (250ok) was acquired and have now moved to the full paid Valimail Monitor platform. We've been very happy with Valimail, but there are many options in this space. Try them. Pick the one that is best for you. Implement it. Get to enforcement (p=quarantine or p=reject). Monitor those reports regularly. It is now essential that legitimate email be fully authenticated using both SPF and DKIM with DMARC domain alignment to even ensure delivery. With a little more work you can improve the odds messages land in the recipient Inbox (rather than Junk or be rejected outright). Invest the time (and money). It's worth it to help protect your users, customers, and partners from spoofed phishing/malware attacks. It is essential if you want to take advantage of BIMI. Good luck!]