Configure and interpret DMARC forensic (ruf) reports with privacy caveats

Steps

1. Add ruf=mailto:forensic@yourdomain.com to your DMARC record to request per-failure reports in Abuse Reporting Format (ARF/AFRF); keep it separate from rua= to simplify triage.
2. Understand that forensic reports may include message headers, subject lines, and partial body content—treat all ruf data as potentially containing personal data subject to GDPR/CCPA.
3. Major providers including Google and Microsoft do not send forensic reports; expect ruf reports mainly from smaller or self-hosted mail servers, so coverage is partial at best.
4. Parse ARF-format reports: each report is a multipart MIME message; the first part is human-readable, the second part (message/feedback-report) contains machine-readable fields like Feedback-Type and Source-IP.
5. Use ruf data for short-term incident response (identifying a specific phishing wave) rather than ongoing monitoring; delete raw reports after 30 to 90 days to limit PII retention.
6. If forensic reports are not needed operationally, omit the ruf= tag entirely; many security teams disable it to reduce PII handling obligations.