Certified Ethical Hacker (CEH v11) — Question 51

Email is transmitted across the Internet using the Simple Mail Transport Protocol. SMTP does not encrypt email, leaving the information in the message vulnerable to being read by an unauthorized person. SMTP can upgrade a connection between two mail servers to use TLS. Email transmitted by SMTP over TLS is encrypted. What is the name of the command used by SMTP to transmit email over TLS?

Answer options

• A. OPPORTUNISTICTLS
• B. UPGRADETLS
• C. FORCETLS
• D. STARTTLS

Correct answer: D

Explanation

The correct answer is STARTTLS, which is the command that allows SMTP to initiate a TLS-encrypted connection for secure email transmission. The other options do not correspond to any recognized commands within the SMTP protocol for upgrading to TLS.