Cisco Securing Email with Cisco Email Security Appliance (300-720 SESA) 300-720 Exam Dumps: Updated Questions & Answers (December 2025)

Forged Email Detection is a feature that allows Cisco ESA to detect and block messages that spoof the display names of internal senders in the From header, such as executives or managers, to trick recipients into opening malicious or fraudulent emails. To configure this feature, two steps are required:

Configure a content dictionary with friendly names of internal senders that should not appear in the From header of external messages, such as Alpha Beta or John Smith.

Configure a filter to use the Forged Email Detection rule and dictionary, which will compare the display name in the From header of incoming messages with the entries in the content dictionary, and apply the configured action if a match is found.

References: User Guide for AsyncOS 15.0 for Cisco Secure Email Gateway, page 9-8.

The SPF record for mycompany.com is shown in the exhibit as:

v=spf1 a mx ip4:199.209.31.21 -all

This means that the domain mycompany.com authorizes the following sources to send email on its behalf:

The A record of mycompany.com, which resolves to 199.209.31.21

The MX record of mycompany.com, which points to mail.mycompany.com, which also resolves to 199.209.31.21

The IP address 199.209.31.21

The -all qualifier means that any other source is not authorized and should be rejected.

Therefore, the correct answer is C.

References:

SPF Record Syntax

Define your SPF record—Basic setup

SPF verification is a feature that allows Cisco ESA to verify the authenticity of the sender’s domain by checking the sender’s IP address against a DNS record published by the domain owner. An SPF record is a TXT record that specifies the authorized IP addresses or hosts for sending emails from a domain, using a syntax of qualifiers, mechanisms, and modifiers.

The reason why the verification is not working properly is that SPF verification is disabled on the mail flow policy that applies to the messages sent from domain abc.com. A mail flow policy is a set of rules that determine how incoming or outgoing messages are processed by Cisco ESA, including whether to enable SPF verification or not.

To enable SPF verification on the mail flow policy, the administrator can follow these steps:

Select Mail Policies > Mail Flow Policies and click Edit Settings for the mail flow policy that applies to the messages sent from domain abc.com.

Under Sender Authentication, select Enable SPF Verification and choose an SPF conformance level from the drop-down menu.

Click Submit.

The other options are not valid reasons why the verification is not working properly, because they do not affect SPF verification on the mail flow policy.

Enabling regional scanning improves security for this organization when most of the received email originates from a specific region. Regional scanning is a feature that allows Cisco ESA to apply different spam thresholds and actions based on the geographic region of the sender’s IP address, using a database of IP addresses and regions.

To enable regional scanning on Cisco ESA, the administrator can follow these steps:

Select Security Services > IronPort Anti-Spam and click Edit Settings.

Under Regional Scanning, select Enable Regional Scanning.

Click Submit.

Select Security Services > IronPort Anti-Spam > Regional Settings and click Add Region.

Choose a region from the drop-down menu, such as Asia Pacific.

Enter a spam threshold and an action for that region, such as 80 and Drop.

Click Submit.

According to the [Cisco Secure Email User Guide], graymail is a category of email messages that are not spam but may be unwanted by some recipients, such as newsletters, promotions, or social media updates[5, p. 25]. Marketing is one of the subcategories of graymail that includes messages that advertise products or services[5, p. 26].

The other options are not valid because:

A. Malicious is not a category for classifying graymail. It is a category for classifying email messages that contain malicious content such as malware, phishing, or fraud[5, p. 25].

C. Spam is not a category for classifying graymail. It is a category for classifying email messages that are unsolicited, unwanted, or harmful[5, p. 25].

D. Priority is not a category for classifying graymail. It is a category for classifying email messages that are important, urgent, or relevant[5, p. 25].

The altsrchost command enables an engineer to deliver a flagged message to a specific virtual gateway address in the most flexible way. This command allows you to specify an alternate source host for messages that match a message filter. You can use this command to route messages to different virtual gateways based on the message content or attributes.

References: Securing Email with Cisco Email Security Appliance (SESA) v3.1, Module 5: Using Message Filters to Enforce Email Policies, Lesson 1: Using Message Filters

Virtual gateways are a feature that allows Cisco ESA to host multiple email domains on a single physical interface, using different IP addresses and hostnames for each domain.

When virtual gateways are configured, two distinct attributes are allocated to each virtual gateway address:

Domain, which is the email domain name that is associated with the virtual gateway address, such as mycompany.com or mydomain.com.

IP address, which is the IPv4 or IPv6 address that is assigned to the virtual gateway address, such as 199.209.31.X or 2001:db8::X.

The other options are not attributes that are allocated to each virtual gateway address on Cisco ESA.

References: User Guide for AsyncOS 15.0 for Cisco Secure Email Gateway, page 5-14 and page 5-15.

Content filter is a component on a Cisco Secure Email Gateway that must be configured to catch attachments, including credit card numbers, and hold them for review until further action is taken. Content filter allows you to define rules based on message content and apply actions such as quarantine, encrypt, or modify. References = [User Guide for AsyncOS 12.0 for Cisco Email Security Appliances - GD (General Deployment) - Content Filters [Cisco Secure Email Gateway] - Cisco]

The allow list is a feature that allows Cisco ESA to accept messages from specific email addresses or domains, regardless of their sender-based reputation score or other reputation filters.

To allow inbound email from that specific domain, the administrator should add the domain into the allow list on Cisco ESA, which can be done from the web user interface by selecting Security Services > Safelist/Blocklist and clicking Add Entry.

The other options are not valid solutions to allow inbound email from that specific domain, because they do not affect the sender-based reputation score or the reputation filters on Cisco ESA.

References: User Guide for AsyncOS 15.0 for Cisco Secure Email Gateway, page 6-13 and page 6-14.

ceo@example.com is the data that must be added to the dictionary to accomplish this goal. A content dictionary is a list of values that can be used as a condition in a content filter or a message filter. Forged Email Detection is a feature that allows Cisco ESA to detect and prevent email spoofing attacks, where the sender’s address or domain is forged to appear as someone else, such as the CEO of the organization.

To create a content dictionary for use with Forged Email Detection on Cisco ESA, the administrator can follow these steps:

Select Mail Policies > Content Dictionaries and click Add Dictionary.

Enter a name and description for the content dictionary, such as CEO Email.

Under Dictionary Values, click Add Value.

Enter the email address of the CEO, such as ceo@example.com.

Click Submit.