2.2.10 Ensure email services are not enabled

Information

dovecot is an open source mail submission and transport server for Linux based systems.

Rationale:

Unless mail transport services are to be provided by this system, it is recommended that the service be disabled or deleted to reduce the potential attack surface.

Solution

Run one of the following commands to disable dovecot :

# systemctl --now disable dovecot

Additional Information:

Additional methods of disabling a service exist. Consult your distribution documentation for appropriate methods.

Several IMAP/POP3 servers exist and can use other service names. courier-imap and cyrus-imap are example services that provide a mail server. These and other services should also be audited.

See Also

https://workbench.cisecurity.org/files/2970

Item Details

Category: SYSTEM AND INFORMATION INTEGRITY

References: 800-53|SI-4, CSCv6|9.1, CSCv7|9.2

Plugin: Unix

Control ID: c42ba270ecb6d1b882d26d325475a5b28147937c15cbf5b4568f69ce8c764dad