Our informative post will help you find out how you can setup Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) Signatures on your Microsoft 365 email to eliminate spam from your domain and increase security.
Microsoft requires you to configure the following DNS records for your domain: Microsoft 365 SPF(previously called o365 spf record) and DKIM.
SPF records allow receiving servers to check whether an email with the specified source domain was actually sent from a server authorized by the owner of this domain.
DKIM adds a digital signature to each message. This allows the receiving server to check if the message has been sent from an authorized sender, faked or changed upon delivery.
Microsoft 365 (o365) SPF Record Configuration
In order to authorize Microsoft 365 to send emails on your domain behalf, you will need to create or update your SPF Record which includes the following mechanism: include:spf.protection.outlook.com
You can achieve this easily with our SPF Record Generator tool; here are the steps:
Step 1: Generate a new Microsoft office 365 SPF Record
Step 2: Copy the newly generated office 365 SPF Record
Step 3: Update your DNS TXT Record for SPF at your domain provider (We will show examples with GoDaddy and Cloudflare)
E.g GoDaddy
E.g Cloudflare
Step 4: Click Save
Important Note: Make sure you don’t create multiple SPF TXT records for office 365 on one domain. If you do, SPF will return a PermError.
If you are using multiple IPs, ESPs, Third-Party services for your various email strategies, you should include them in a single SPF Record.
E.g v=spf1 ip4:17.67.137.221 include:spf.protection.outlook.com include:thirdpartyservice.com ~all
Microsoft 365 DKIM Configuration
Step 1: Go to the DKIM Page from your Microsoft 365 Defender portal https://security.microsoft.com/dkimv2
Step 2: Next, select your organizational domain name, and click “Enable”.
Step 3: Once you click on the “Enable”, a new pop up window will appear with the applicable CNAME Records.
To summarize, this contains 2 separate CNAME Records which looks like this:
Type: CNAME
Host Name: selector1._domainkey
Value: selector1-yourdomain-com._domainkey.tenantdomain.onmicrosoft.com (This part is UNIQUE to each domain)Type: CNAME
Host Name: selector2._domainkey
Value: selector2-yourdomain-com._domainkey.tenantdomain.onmicrosoft.com (This part is UNIQUE to each domain)
Step 4: Copy these 2 CNAME Values and paste them in your DNS Provider (In this example, we’ll be using CloudFlare)
1st CNAME:
2nd CNAME:
Step 5: Once the 2 CNAME Records are implemented in your DNS, go back to your Microsoft 365 Defender portal and re-click the “Enable” button. If everything has been configured correctly, you’ll get to see the green check with the “Enabled” notification.
Congrats, you now successfully authenticated your outgoing mail stream from Office 365 with SPF and DKIM.