Red Sift finds top US DCs lack email security protections

Author: Joe Peck

As cyber threats increasingly target critical infrastructure, a new analysis from Red Sift, a London-based cybersecurity firm specialising in AI-powered email security and digital brand protection, reveals significant email security gaps among the largest data centre operators in the United States.

Despite underpinning the nation’s digital economy, an alarming 27% of the top 100 US data centres lack effective email authentication enforcement, leaving them vulnerable to domain spoofing and phishing attacks.

The review examined the top 100 US data centres, analysing their implementation of key email security standards such as DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance), which is designed to prevent attackers from impersonating trusted domains.

Key findings include:

• 27% of data centres operate with weak or no enforcement (email security policies set to “none” or not configured), creating a major spoofing vulnerability across critical infrastructure.

• 10% of analysed organisations have no DMARC record at all, representing the highest-risk category for impersonation-based attacks.

• BIMI adoption remains extremely low at just 6%, meaning 94% of data centre brands lack visual verification in inboxes, significantly increasing the risk of brand impersonation.

An urgent need for stronger protections

These gaps are especially concerning given the sector’s scale and importance.

The United States is home to more than 4,500 active data centres consuming approximately 176 TWh of electricity annually, about 4.4% of total US power use, with over 700 additional facilities under construction across 38 states. Virginia leads the nation with more than 665 facilities, followed by Texas and California.

The findings, Red Sift believes, underscore an urgent need for stronger baseline protections across the sector.

Even as data centre capacity rapidly expands to meet rising demand from AI and digital services, email security remains an overlooked but critical vulnerability layer, with attackers increasingly exploiting trusted infrastructure domains to gain footholds across interconnected systems.

As the backbone of cloud computing, AI, financial systems, and national security infrastructure, data centres represent high-value targets for cybercriminals. Weak email authentication leaves operators, partners, and customers exposed to phishing, business email compromise (BEC), and supply chain attacks that can disrupt operations or compromise sensitive data flows.