During a penetration test you capture an SMTP session between the organization's mail server and an external partner. After the EHLO exchange you see the command 'STARTTLS' followed by a TLS handshake. Management claims this means all outbound email is now fully encrypted until it reaches recipients. As the consultant, what is the correct explanation?
STARTTLS guarantees end-to-end encryption of the message body until it is opened in the recipient's mail client.
The command digitally signs each message with the server's certificate, providing authenticity but not confidentiality.
It establishes an IPsec ESP tunnel between sender and recipient networks, protecting headers and body throughout transit.
The SMTP channel is encrypted only for this hop; without S/MIME or OpenPGP the message can still be stored or forwarded in clear text later.
SMTP with STARTTLS upgrades the transport connection to TLS only for the single hop between the two mail transfer agents that negotiated it. The message contents are decrypted as soon as they are accepted by the next server and may travel further or be stored in plaintext. End-to-end protection that persists to the recipient's mailbox requires a message-level scheme such as S/MIME or OpenPGP. STARTTLS neither signs the mail nor creates an IPsec tunnel; it simply provides opportunistic, hop-by-hop encryption of the SMTP channel.
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What is STARTTLS and how does it work in SMTP?
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How is STARTTLS different from S/MIME or OpenPGP?
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Why doesn’t STARTTLS guarantee full email confidentiality?
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What does STARTTLS do in an SMTP session?
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What is the difference between STARTTLS and end-to-end encryption?
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Why can a message encrypted with STARTTLS still be stored in plaintext later?
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