Security risk of POP3 & IMAP protocols

[Adam Tauno Williams]

> A friend of mine is asking me about security risks of using IMAP &
> POP3 protocols. Why? Because a sales person told my friend that IMAP
> protocol is less secure than POP3 protocol. This assumption is not
> related to Cyrus IMAP, instead is related only to the protocols.
> I'm searching at Google something about POP3 & IMAP security but I'm
> not pretty sure about comments I can found in forums or other sites.

I'd write this claim off as bogus;  use GSSAPI authentication and TLS
and either is extremely secure.  Your more pressing security
vulnerabilities will certainly be elsewhere (the client OS and
configuration, most likely).