fetchmail-SA-2007-01: APOP considered insecure

Topics:		The POP3/APOP authentication, by itself, is considered broken.

Author:		Matthias Andree
Version:	1.0
Announced:	2007-04-06
Type:		password theft when under MITM attack
Impact:		password disclosure possible
Danger:		low
Credits:	Gaëtan Leurent
CVE Name:	CVE-2007-1558
URL:		http://fetchmail.berlios.de/fetchmail-SA-2007-01.txt
Project URL:	http://fetchmail.berlios.de/

Affects:	fetchmail release < 6.3.8

Not affected:	fetchmail release 6.3.8

Corrected:	2007-03-18 fetchmail SVN


0. Release history
==================

2007-04-06 1.0	first release


1. Background
=============

fetchmail is a software package to retrieve mail from remote POP2, POP3,
IMAP, ETRN or ODMR servers and forward it to local SMTP, LMTP servers or
message delivery agents.

fetchmail ships with a graphical, Python/Tkinter based configuration
utility named "fetchmailconf" to help the user create configuration (run
control) files for fetchmail.


2. Problem description and Impact
=================================

The POP3 standard, currently RFC-1939, has specified an optional,
MD5-based authentication scheme called "APOP".

Fetchmail's POP3 client implementation however has happily accepted
random garbage as a POP3 server's APOP challenge, rather than insisting
that the APOP challenge conformed to RFC-822, as required by RFC-1939.
This made it easier than necessary for man-in-the-middle attackers to
retrieve by several probing and guessing the first three characters of
the APOP secret, bringing brute forcing the remaining characters well
within reach.


3. Solution
===========

Either of these is currently considered sufficient.

A. Only use APOP on SSL or TLS secured connections with mandatory and thorough
   certificate validation, such as fetchmail --sslproto tls1 --sslcertck
   or --sslproto ssl3 --sslcertck), or equivalent in the run control file.

B. Avoid APOP and use stronger authenticators.

C. If you must continue to use APOP without SSL/TLS, then install
   fetchmail 6.3.8 or newer, as it is less susceptible to the attack by
   validating the APOP challenge more strictly to make the attack
   harder. The fetchmail 6.3.8 source code is available from
   <http://developer.berlios.de/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1824>.


A. Copyright, License and Warranty
==================================

(C) Copyright 2007 by Matthias Andree, <matthias.andree@gmx.de>.
Some rights reserved.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs German License. To view a copy of
this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/de/
or send a letter to Creative Commons; 559 Nathan Abbott Way;
Stanford, California 94305; USA.

THIS WORK IS PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE AND WITHOUT ANY WARRANTIES.
Use the information herein at your own risk.

END OF fetchmail-SA-2007-01.txt