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**SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)** is a TCP/IP protocol used in **sending** and receiving **e-mail**. However, since it is limited in its ability to queue messages at the receiving end, it is usually used with one of two other protocols, POP3 or IMAP, that let the user save messages in a server mailbox and download them periodically from the server.
In other words, **users typically use** a program that uses **SMTP for sending e-mail** and either **POP3 or IMAP for receiving** e-mail. On Unix-based systems, **sendmail** is the most widely-used SMTP server for e-mail. A commercial package, Sendmail, includes a POP3 server. **Microsoft Exchange** includes an SMTP server and can also be set up to include POP3 support.\
If you have the opportunity to **make the victim send you a emai**l (via contact form of the web page for example), do it because **you could learn about the internal topology** of the victim seeing the headers of the mail.
You can also get an email from a SMTP server trying to **send to that server an email to a non-existent address** (because the server will send to the attacker a NDN mail). But, be sure that you send the email from an allowed address (check the SPF policy) and that you can receive NDN messages.
You should also try to **send different contents because you can find more interesting information** on the headers like: `X-Virus-Scanned: by av.domain.com`\
If the server supports NTLM auth (Windows) you can obtain sensitive info (versions). More info [**here**](https://medium.com/@m8r0wn/internal-information-disclosure-using-hidden-ntlm-authentication-18de17675666).
**Delivery Status Notification Reports**: If you send an **email** to an organisation to an **invalid address**, the organisation will notify that the address was invalided sending a **mail back to you**. **Headers** of the returned email will **contain** possible **sensitive information** (like IP address of the mail services that interacted with the reports or anti-virus software info).
root@kali:~# sendEmail -t itdept@victim.com -f techsupport@bestcomputers.com -s 192.168.8.131 -u Important Upgrade Instructions -a /tmp/BestComputers-UpgradeInstructions.pdf
Reading message body from STDIN because the '-m' option was not used.
If you are manually typing in a message:
- First line must be received within 60 seconds.
- End manual input with a CTRL-D on its own line.
IT Dept,
We are sending this important file to all our customers. It contains very important instructions for upgrading and securing your software. Please read and let us know if you have any problems.
Most of this section was extracted from the book **Network Security Assessment 3rd Edition**.
SMTP messages are easily spoofed, and so organizations use **SPF**, **DKIM**, and **DMARC** features to prevent parties from sending unauthorised email.
A **complete guide of these countermeasures** can be found in [https://seanthegeek.net/459/demystifying-dmarc/](https://seanthegeek.net/459/demystifying-dmarc/)
In order to define IP addresses/ranges, domains and others that are **allowed to send email on behalf a domain name**, different "**Mechanism**" cam appear in the SPF registry.
| ALL | Matches always; used for a default result like `-all` for all IPs not matched by prior mechanisms. |
| A | If the domain name has an address record (A or AAAA) that can be resolved to the sender's address, it will match. |
| IP4 | If the sender is in a given IPv4 address range, match. |
| IP6 | If the sender is in a given IPv6 address range, match. |
| MX | If the domain name has an MX record resolving to the sender's address, it will match (i.e. the mail comes from one of the domain's incoming mail servers). |
| PTR | If the domain name (PTR record) for the client's address is in the given domain and that domain name resolves to the client's address (forward-confirmed reverse DNS), match. This mechanism is discouraged and should be avoided, if possible. |
| EXISTS | If the given domain name resolves to any address, match (no matter the address it resolves to). This is rarely used. Along with the SPF macro language it offers more complex matches like DNSBL-queries. |
| INCLUDE | References the policy of another domain. If that domain's policy passes, this mechanism passes. However, if the included policy fails, processing continues. To fully delegate to another domain's policy, the redirect extension must be used. |
| REDIRECT | <p>A redirect is a pointer to another domain name that hosts an SPF policy, it allows for multiple domains to share the same SPF policy. It is useful when working with a large amount of domains that share the same email infrastructure.</p><p>It SPF policy of the domain indicated in the redirect Mechanism will be used.</p> |
It's also possible to identify **Qualifiers** that indicates **what should be done if a mechanism is matched**. By default, the **qualifier "+"** is used (so if any mechanism is matched, that means it's allowed).\
You usually will note **at the end of each SPF policy** something like: **\~all** or **-all**. This is used to indicate that **if the sender doesn't match any SPF policy, you should tag the email as untrusted (\~) or reject (-) the email.**
Traditionally it was possible to spoof any domain name that didn't have a correct/any SPF record. **Nowadays**, if **email** comes from a **domain without a valid SPF record** is probably going to be **rejected/marked as untrusted automatically**.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) is a mechanism by which **outbound email is signed and validated by foreign MTAs upon retrieving a domain’s public key via DNS**. The DKIM public key is held within a TXT record for a domain; however, you must know both the selector and domain name to retrieve it.
Then, to ask for the key you need the domain name and the selector of the mail from the mail header `DKIM-Signature` for example: `d=gmail.com;s=20120113`
Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance (DMARC) is a method of mail authentication that expands upon SPF and DKIM. Policies instruct mail servers how to process email for a given domain and report upon actions performed.
PayPal and Yahoo instruct mail servers to reject messages that contain invalid DKIM signatures or do not originate from their networks. Notifications are then sent to the respective email addresses within each organization. Google is configured in a similar way, although it instructs mail servers to quarantine messages and not outright reject them.
The following was originally posted on openspf.org, which used to be a great resource for this kind of thing.
> The Demon Question: What about subdomains?
>
> If I get mail from pielovers.demon.co.uk, and there's no SPF data for pielovers, should I go back one level and test SPF for demon.co.uk? No. Each subdomain at Demon is a different customer, and each customer might have their own policy. It wouldn't make sense for Demon's policy to apply to all its customers by default; if Demon wants to do that, it can set up SPF records for each subdomain.
>
> So the advice to SPF publishers is this: you should add an SPF record for each subdomain or hostname that has an A or MX record.
>
> Sites with wildcard A or MX records should also have a wildcard SPF record, of the form: \* IN TXT "v=spf1 -all"
This makes sense - a subdomain may very well be in a different geographical location and have a very different SPF definition.
To prevent the sent emails from being filtered by spam filters and not reaching the recipient, the sender can use a **relay server that the recipient trusts**. Often, administrators **haven't overviewed** of which **IP** ranges they have to **allow**. This results in a misconfiguration of the SMTP server that we will still often find in external and internal penetration tests. Therefore, they **allow all IP addresses** not to cause errors in the email traffic and thus not to disturb or unintentionally interrupt the communication with potential and current customers:
## The receiver won't be able to check it, but the email will appear as signed (and therefore, more trusted)
dkim_selector="s1"
sig = dkim.sign(message=msg_data,selector=str(dkim_selector).encode(),domain=sender_domain.encode(),privkey=dkim_private_key.encode(),include_headers=headers)
**Find more information about these protections in** [**https://seanthegeek.net/459/demystifying-dmarc/**](https://seanthegeek.net/459/demystifying-dmarc/)
Usually, if installed, in `/etc/postfix/master.cf` contains **scripts to execute** when for example a new mail is receipted by a user. For example the line `flags=Rq user=mark argv=/etc/postfix/filtering-f ${sender} -- ${recipient}` means that `/etc/postfix/filtering` will be executed if a new mail is received by the user mark.
SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) is a TCP/IP protocol used in sending and receiving e-mail. However, since it is limited in its ability to queue messages at the receiving end, it is usually used with one of two other protocols, POP3 or IMAP, that let the user save messages in a server mailbox and download them periodically from the server.
* Do you work in a **cybersecurity company**? Do you want to see your **company advertised in HackTricks**? or do you want to have access to the **latest version of the PEASS or download HackTricks in PDF**? Check the [**SUBSCRIPTION PLANS**](https://github.com/sponsors/carlospolop)!
* Discover [**The PEASS Family**](https://opensea.io/collection/the-peass-family), our collection of exclusive [**NFTs**](https://opensea.io/collection/the-peass-family)
* Get the [**official PEASS & HackTricks swag**](https://peass.creator-spring.com)
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* **Share your hacking tricks by submitting PRs to the** [**hacktricks github repo**](https://github.com/carlospolop/hacktricks)**.**
