Federal Government Information Technology

Quarter of emails claiming to be from feds are malicious, unauthenticated, says cyber firm

Fifth Domain: WASHINGTON ― Some 25 percent of emails claiming to be from the federal government are either unauthenticated or malicious, according to a new report from cybersecurity firm Agari.

In the report, Agari notes federal agencies will continue to suffer from excessive malicious emails without the usage of proper Domain-based Message Authentication (DMARC) monitoring policies. The company concluded that 90 percent of the 400 federal domains are vulnerable to these types of threats.

Agari believes that this is because 82 percent of federal domains do not use DMARC email authentication standards. This factor increasingly leaves constituents vulnerable to phishing and general email-based cyberattacks that can involve the theft of passwords, installation of ransomware, or the conning of users to send money.

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