There is currently no way to configure the list of used ciphers in mail/imap-uw. As I understand it, the relevant line is located in c-client/ssl_unix.c and is hard-coded to be somewhat insecure: #define SSLCIPHERLIST "ALL:!LOW" If we could provide our own value for SSLCIPHERLIST at compile time, that would solve the issue. security/openssl allows you to disable SSLv2 and SSLv3 with options used at compile time, but not all ports currently function without SSLv2 and SSLv3 support enabled, so you can't solve this problem using that trick either.
FYI, this port is unmaintained and there's no provided patch so the chances of something happening are not great unless you improve your chances (e.g. provide a tested patch)
Move PR out of triage, there's no action to be done.
See the discussion at <http://blog.gmane.org/gmane.mail.imap.uw.c-client/month=20141001>.
At this point, mail/imap-uw should probably be retired and replaced by mail/panda-imap. It is based on imap-uw code and functions similarly, and is actually being maintained. Similarly, mail/cclient has been replaced by panda-cclient. Currently there is a notification that prevents you from building both at the same time (since they generate the same executables), but maybe it's time to pull the plug on imap-uw entirely.
I submitted PR ports/195973 add the support of panda-cclient in lang/php5. ATM I've not yet patched panda-cclient to reduce the list of ciphers, but this is doable.
That would be a very nice feature, although it is less dire now that panda-imap will compile with an openssl that has had SSLv2/SSLv3 disabled in its config. imap-uw crashes when you try to build it in that configuration, and without a means of modifying the cipher list, there was no way around the vulnerability.
Actually, the part about imap-uw not building with those options might not be true. It was the case that OTHER ports didn't build (although most of these have now been cleaned up), and I think that might have been what was preventing me from using openssl in that configuration. Sorry for the confusion. All that said, imap-uw development is at the end of the road and panda-imap is being actively maintained, so the original point stands. And it's still true that a modifiable cipher list in panda-imap would be great.
I think nothing will be changed with imap-uw. So I guess this could be closed.
imap-uw has been unmaintained upstream for several years so I think we can close this as it's not a port(ing) issue.