Title

Unencrypted FTP must not be used on the system. (Cat II impact)

Discussion

FTP is typically unencrypted and, therefore, presents confidentiality and integrity risks. FTP may be protected by encryption in certain cases, such as when used in a Kerberos environment. SFTP and FTPS are encrypted alternatives to FTP.

Check Content

Determine if unencrypted ftp or telnet are enabled. # cat /etc/inetd.conf | tr ‘\011’ ‘ ‘ | tr –s ‘ ‘ | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//' | grep –v “^#” | \ egrep –c –i “ i^ftp|ftp| ftp|^telnet|telnet| telnet” If either of these services are found (IE: the command returns a non-zero value), and are not commented, ask the SA if both of these services are encrypted. If they are not, this is a finding.

Fix Text

Edit /etc/inetd.conf and comment out or remove the "ftp" and "telnet" services.

Additional Identifiers

Rule ID: SV-12511r2_rule

Vulnerability ID: V-12010

Group Title: GEN004800

Expert Comments

CCIs tied to check.

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