Title

Exchange internal Send connectors must use an authentication level. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

The Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) connector is used by Exchange to send and receive messages from server to server. Several controls work together to provide security between internal servers. This setting controls the encryption method used for communications between servers. With this feature enabled, only servers capable of supporting Transport Layer Security (TLS) will be able to send and receive mail within the domain. The use of secure communication prevents eavesdroppers from reading or modifying communications between mail clients and servers. While sensitive message bodies should be encrypted by the sender at the client, requiring a secure connection from server to server adds protection by encrypting the sender and recipient information that cannot be encrypted by the sender. Individually, channel security and encryption can be compromised by attackers. Used together, email becomes a more difficult target, and security is heightened. Failure to enable this feature gives eavesdroppers an opportunity to read or modify messages between servers.

Check Content

Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command: Get-SendConnector | Select Name, Identity, TlsAuthLevel If the value of "TlsAuthLevel" is not set to "DomainValidation", this is a finding.

Fix Text

Open the Exchange Management Shell and enter the following command: Set-SendConnector -Identity <'IdentityName'> -TlsAuthLevel DomainValidation

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-221260r961620_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-221260

Group Title: SRG-APP-000435

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

Controls tied to check. These are derived from the CCIs shown above.