RE: CBV

"Seth Goodman" <[email protected]>
Newsgroups gmane.mail.spam.srs.general
Message-ID <[email protected]>
> From: Seth Goodman
> Sent: Saturday, May 08, 2004 5:07 PM
>
>

<...>

> I know that most people choose
> to shut off VRFY to discourage dictionary attacks, and I don't know how
> people feel about turning on EXPN.

Replying to my own post:

Another thought that _might_ make allowing EXPN more acceptable is to only
accept the command _after_ receiving a MAIL FROM:<>, RCPT TO:<...> that
passes.  This means that the SMTP-client has a valid MAIL FROM: string that
came from your outgoing MTA.  Even if the MAIL FROM: was harvested from a
promiscuous sending account and the CBV passes, expanding the recipient list
will only yield the attacker's address who harvested the MAIL FROM:.  If the
CBV doesn't pass, you simply deny the EXPN command.  I don't know if this
violates RFC2821, but it does make it safe to permit EXPN under limited
circumstances.

--

Seth Goodman
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