Cryptography to protect the integrity of non-local maintenance and diagnostic communications The telnet service must be disabled, as it sends all data, including the user's password, in a clear text form that can be easily intercepted and read. Passwords need to be protected at all times and encryption is the standard method for protecting passwords. If passwords are not encrypted, they can be plainly read (i.e., clear text) and easily compromised. Disabling telnet is one way to mitigate this risk. Administrator users should be instructed to use an alternate service that implements cryptography such as SSH.

enabled/disabled

The service 'telnet' should be disabled, to check the status of the service, run the following command: sudo /usr/libexec/PlistBuddy -c 'print com.apple.telnetd:Disabled' /var/db/launchd.db/com.apple.launchd/overrides.plist If the returned value isn't 'true' or doesn't exist, this is a finding.