SV-38713r1: The system must not have the PostOffice Protocol (POP3) service active. | AIX 6.1 SECURITY TECHNICAL IMPLEMENTATION GUIDE

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Assessment Title

Rule Text

The system must not have the PostOffice Protocol (POP3) service active.

Description

Discussion Text

The POP3 service is only needed if the server is acting as a mail server and clients are using applications that only support POP3. Users' ids and passwords are sent in plain text to the POP3 service. If mail client access is needed, consider using IMAP or SSL enabled POP3.

How this relates to the STIG checklist: STIG vs SCAP benchmark.

IA Controls

NIST SP 800-53

Not mappedCCI-001436

Additional Details

Responsibility

System Administrator

IA Controls

ECSC-1

References

DPMS Target AIX 6.1 DISA DPMS Target AIX 6.1 2176

SCC Automation Reference

The reconstructed evaluation script behind this rule's OVAL check(s) — every module a compound check combines, with this rule's own concrete values and DISA's SCC tool's real per-module mechanism curated from static teardown of SCC releases.

#!/bin/bash
# Reconstructed from oval:mil.disa.fso.aix11:def:397
# The system must not have the PostOffice Protocol (POP3) service active.
# Per-module read mechanism curated from static teardown of DISA's SCC tool
# (SCAP Compliance Checker) -- see the SCC Automation Reference above.

# pop3 daemon not running
# inetd_object (inetd_test)
test_1() {
  (cat /etc/inetd.conf 2>/dev/null) | grep -Pq '.*/pop3d$'
}

if test_1; then
  echo "PASS"
else
  echo "FAIL"
fi

Assessment Script Powered by AISandbox-executed

A standalone Shell script to assess this control automatically. Review before running it in your environment.

Syntax-checked and actually executed in an isolated sandbox (not the real system this checks) — confirmed to run without errors.

#!/bin/sh
# oval:mil.disa.fso.aix11:def:397

if ! [ -f /etc/inetd.conf ]; then
  echo "PASS"
  exit 0
fi

grep -q "^pop3d.*#" /etc/inetd.conf || grep -q "^pop3d$" /etc/inetd.conf

if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
  echo "FAIL"
  exit 1
else
  echo "PASS"
  exit 0
fi

Remediation

Edit /etc/inetd.conf and comment out POP3 the service line. Restart the inetd service.   
# refresh -s inetd