cPanel configuration appears to allow unauthenticated SMTP - how to fix?

Posted by ttsiodras on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by ttsiodras
Published on 2010-03-01T16:06:57Z Indexed on 2010/05/15 20:06 UTC
Read the original article Hit count: 213

Filed under:

secure

|

email

|

exim

|

tls

One of my clients is using a cPanel-based Virtual Dedicated Server that appears to allow unauthenticated SMTP:

bash$ echo EHLO | nc mail.clientscompany.com 25
...
250-SIZE 52428800
250-PIPELINING
250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
250-STARTTLS
250 HELP

It therefore appears that anyone (esp. spammers) can use his mail server to send whatever - I just connected from my DSL connection at home, and...

bash$ nc mail.clientscompany.com 25
HELO clientscompany.com
MAIL FROM: [email protected]
RCPT TO: [email protected]
DATA
From: <[email protected]>
To: <[email protected]>
Date: ...
Subject: ...
Blah
.
QUIT

I just tested this, and sure enough, it sent a mail from "[email protected]".

Since I am not familiar with cPanel and WHM, can someone provide pointers to configure his mail server to (a) only accept TLS connections and (b) only authenticated ones (i.e. with user/password, not just plain connections).

Thanks for any help.

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