Your subdomains are protected more weakly than your domain

What it means

You publish p=none for example.com but sp=none for everything beneath it. Attackers read DMARC records too, and invoices.example.com is exactly as convincing to a recipient as the domain itself.

How to fix it

Set sp to match p. If a subdomain genuinely needs a softer policy, publish a DMARC record on that subdomain rather than weakening every subdomain at once.

Check your own domain

This page describes the condition. To find out whether your domain has it, run the RUA test or the full checkup, which examines every record at once.

Understand it properly

This page covers one condition. For the whole picture, The DMARC guide, including how reporting works, or start at the Health Library.

Where this comes from

We judge this against RFC 9989 section 4.7. Every finding on this site cites the specification behind it so you can check the work rather than take our word for it.

Other RUA conditions

• You are ready to turn enforcement on
• Some of this is forwarded mail, not an attack
• Somebody is sending as you, and it is being delivered
• Unauthenticated mail is getting past your policy
• Your policy stopped forged mail
• Your own mail is failing authentication