What is TLS-RPT
TLS-RPT delivers daily reports about TLS failures on your inbound email — helping you debug MTA-STS and DANE issues. TLS-RPT sits in the part of the mail flow where identity, sender reputation, and enforcement meet. The details matter because one weak link can undo the work done by the other controls.
If you are already working through MTA-STS and DANE, this topic gives you the missing layer between the raw signal and the decision you have to make. For a live check, start with the CyberFurl TLS-RPT check and then use the See the email authentication feature page to see where it fits in the wider CyberFurl workflow.
What's in a TLS-RPT report
A TLS-RPT report summarizes transport failures that senders encountered when trying to deliver mail with expected TLS protections. Depending on the reporter, it can show counts, failure reasons, affected MX hosts, and whether problems were tied to MTA-STS or DANE expectations.
That makes it useful less as a daily inbox item and more as an operational feedback loop for whether stricter transport policy is breaking or being bypassed in the wild.
How TLS-RPT pairs with MTA-STS / DANE
TLS-RPT is the visibility layer that makes stricter transport policies manageable. MTA-STS and DANE tell senders what the receiving domain expects; TLS-RPT tells the receiving domain when those expectations were not met.
Without that feedback loop, teams can publish transport controls and still miss handshake failures, policy mismatches, or certificate problems affecting real senders.
Setting up the DNS record (HowTo)
TLS-RPT is published as a DNS TXT record that tells reporters where they can send aggregate transport-failure data. The operational part is not the syntax itself, but making sure the reporting destination is monitored by someone who can tie failures back to mail infrastructure changes.
Common report patterns
Most reports cluster around predictable issues: certificate mismatch, unreachable policy files, MX host changes, or senders that still cannot satisfy the published policy. Patterns over time matter more than one noisy report because they show whether the issue is isolated or systemic.
Tools that parse TLS-RPT
Raw reports are useful, but they become far more valuable when teams can aggregate and interpret them alongside MTA-STS, MX, and certificate posture. That is the gap tooling should close: from raw transport telemetry to an actionable explanation of what broke.
How to fix or implement TLS-RPT
A good implementation plan for TLS-RPT starts with inventory, not with copying a sample policy. Teams need to know which providers, applications, mail paths, or DNS owners are already in the flow before they tighten anything.
From there the safe pattern is consistent: publish the smallest defensible change, validate the result from the outside, and keep monitoring after rollout so the control does not quietly regress after a vendor or infrastructure change. CyberFurl helps most when that validation is tied back to live evidence from CyberFurl TLS-RPT check.
- 1
Baseline TLS-RPT on the live domain
Start by reading the exact DNS records, headers, or transport signals involved in TLS-RPT so you know whether the domain is merely configured or actually aligned with production traffic.
- 2
Publish or correct the control safely
Implement the smallest change that improves TLS-RPT without breaking legitimate senders, forwarders, or receiving paths. For email controls, staged rollout matters more than fast rollout.
- 3
Validate behavior end to end
Tools to check your TLS-RPT
Use the CyberFurl TLS-RPT check when you want to see the live signal on a real domain, and then step back to the See the email authentication feature page when you need the wider workflow around posture, monitoring, or remediation. That combination is usually much more useful than reading the standard in isolation.
Further reading inside CyberFurl
- CyberFurl TLS-RPT check
- See the email authentication feature
- MTA-STS
- DANE
- CyberFurl public security report
Standards and references
Frequently asked questions
Is TLS-RPT required?
TLS-RPT is not always mandated by law or by the protocol, but mature teams usually treat it as a baseline once the domain matters for customers, partners, mail delivery, or public trust. The real question is not “must I have it?” but “what risk am I carrying if I leave it weak?”
Where do reports get delivered?
The right next step is usually evidence first: inspect the live public behavior, identify the dependency or exposure that matters, and then decide whether to implement, tighten, monitor, or clean up. TLS-RPT is most useful when the answer is anchored in what production is actually doing rather than in documentation alone.