{
  "id": 12543193,
  "title": "We checked 51 small-business domains: 30 could be spoofed by email. Here's how to find these prospects automatically",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/10/07/we-checked-51-small-business-domains-30-could-be-spoofed-by-email",
  "topic": "tech",
  "section": "Tech",
  "published": "2026-10-07T04:16:22.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Dev.to",
    "slug": "dev-to",
    "url": "https://dev.to/probelane/we-checked-51-small-business-domains-30-could-be-spoofed-by-email-heres-how-to-find-these-3ome"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "The study checked the DNS records, email setup and security of 51 small businesses across South Africa and the United States. Roughly 60% of these firms could have their email accounts spoofed, as many lacked DMARC records. Over a third of the firms didn't implement DKIM keys, and outdated software like jQuery 3.5 or PHP 10 were in use by some. Additionally, 3 out of the 51 domains were about to expire. The research found that DMARC was the most critical issue, as it can prevent email spoofing attempts that often lead to invoice fraud. A scoring system was developed to rank businesses based on the severity of their security issues, enabling salespeople to focus on the most critical cases first. The findings emphasize the importance of implementing DMARC and other security measures to protect businesses from email-based threats.",
  "summary": "If you sell IT, security or web services to small businesses, the hardest part of outreach is the first line. \"We help businesses with cybersecurity\" gets ignored. \"Anyone can currently send email that looks like it's from @yourfirm.com, and here's the DNS record that proves it\" gets read. We wanted to know how common those verifiable, fixable problems really are, so we ran passive, public-only…",
  "key_points": [
    "51 small businesses across South Africa and the US studied",
    "30 domains vulnerable to email spoofing due to lack of DMARC",
    "DMARC identified as most critical security measure to prevent fraud"
  ],
  "editors_take": "This development highlights the vulnerability of small businesses to email spoofing and invoice fraud due to inadequate security measures, particularly the lack of DMARC records and outdated software.",
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}