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Email Authentication · MTA-STS and TLS-RPT

MTA-STS FAQ: 5 questions answered

Short answer

Only when the recipient domain publishes a policy. Your own policy protects mail coming to you.

MTA-STS (Mail Transfer Agent Strict Transport Security) lets a domain declare that inbound mail must be delivered over TLS with a valid certificate. TLS-RPT provides reports on delivery failures caused by TLS problems.

Does MTA-STS affect outbound mail?

Only when the recipient domain publishes a policy. Your own policy protects mail coming to you.

Is DANE better than MTA-STS?

DANE requires DNSSEC and is stronger, but MTA-STS is easier to adopt. Microsoft and Google both support MTA-STS.

Why does MTA-STS matter for deliverability?

Opportunistic TLS can be downgraded by an attacker in the network path. MTA-STS closes that hole and is increasingly a checkbox in security questionnaires.

What is the first step to get started with MTA-STS?

Publish a _mta-sts TXT record with an id value you will change on each policy update.

What is the most common MTA-STS mistake?

Listing MX hostnames that do not exactly match certificate names.

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