SSH Issues: Does Installing SSH Enable More Exploits Than it Solves?
- By John Traenkenschuh
- May 26, 2006
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- May 1, 2009
- Creating Apps for New Markets: Exploring the PocketPC Platform
- Dec 21, 2007
- Text File Operations in .NET
- Dec 14, 2007
- Desktop Search Tools — A Security Investigator's New Best Friend
- Oct 26, 2007
- Zune: Reflections on the First Generation
- Oct 12, 2007
- Seven Steps to Improving Your VB Code
- Aug 17, 2007
- Moka5: Virtualization in Your Pocket
- Mar 16, 2007
- SSH Security Primer: Server Security Settings
- Feb 23, 2007
- SSH Security Primer: Client Security
- Feb 16, 2007
- Security on a Dime: Low-Cost Alternatives to SSH
- Jan 5, 2007
- Windows Media Encoder: Quality Video Training Done on the Cheap
- Sep 29, 2006
- Mitigating the Security Risks of SSH
- Aug 25, 2006
- Virtual PC and VMware: A Comparative Review
- Jun 16, 2006
- SSH Issues: Does Installing SSH Enable More Exploits Than it Solves?
- May 26, 2006
- Learning Linux the Easy Way - With Cygwin
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- Rsyncing to New Heights in Linux Lore
- Apr 21, 2006
- Converting Video for Your Pocket PC the Easy Way
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- Pocket PC: The ONE Device for Portable Digital Media
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- Visual Basic 2005: Maximizing the VB Experience with New and Old Features
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- Faster Coding with the "My" Object in Visual Basic 2005
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- Design and Install the Perfect PC—On Your Mac
- Aug 12, 2005
- Evaluating Your Firewall
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- UNIX Key Security
- Apr 30, 2004
- UNIX Security 101
- Sep 26, 2003
- Did You Know 4.0
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There's an old video on You Tube that purports to be a true indicator of massive world changes. What do you think of it?
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What happens fifty times each minute?
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1.5 Million Facebook accounts are being sold. How much is yours worth?
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The 90's called and they want their store-data-live-on-a-PC strategy back
- Slash & Burn Computing Tenent 3: Separate browsing from other work
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So much Drive-By Malware, so much to protect...
- Slash & Burn Computing Tenent Number 2: Staying Online Persistently Is like Buying a House in a Bad Neighborhood
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Staying Online Persistently is like Buying a House in a Bad Neighborhood; You gotta assume at least one successful break in--when you're not looking.
- Slash & Burn Computing Tenent I: Anything Internet is Similar to Sharing a Toothbrush
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Today's computing experience is full of risks, with patches and security software moving too slowly to keep up. Cruising the Internet is like sharing a toothbrush with a tobacco chewer; you never know what you'll wind up getting out of the deal.
- Traenk's new Security Design: Slash & Burn
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With so many new exploits among so many utilities announced, what is a boy to do???
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How much of your information do you allow others to review?
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Patch Patch and Patch Some More! Not!
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What can a trained security specialist provide; as much as your organization needs?
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It shutdown as mysteriously as it came back earlier. The TX, once dead, is now back
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The Google attack teaches many lessons.
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It's an old HP tx1000 to you, but to me, it's a cool machine that's worthy of a second life.
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Why does the CISSP certification continue to thrill me?
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So far, Win 7 has pulled an old laptop from the ashes.
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How can I prove to a high school chum just who I am?
- So Far So Good
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So far, Win 7 is making a thoroughbred of what has been a plough mule laptop
- Win 7, something to talk about.
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How well does Win 7 accomodate truly junktacular gear?
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Time to think through last year's work and this year's goals
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Have you tuned your Facebook privacy settings yet? How's that working out for you?
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Do you really want coworkers to drag you into their own plans, thanks to social networking?
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Much like the line from the song, "Hotel California", Traenk finds out that membership with key Internet II sites is eternal...
- Social Networking--Or Else!
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Having De-Tweeted, it's time to go further
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What happens when you snip strings to others or refuse to be your own Greek Chorus to your Life's happenings?
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Leaves are down; harvest is in, for the most part. Another year comes rushing up to us. What will it bring?
- Social Networking for the Anti-Socialites
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How would Scrooge handle today's emphasis on social networking?
- Out of Sight
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Must data be live for you to Live?
- Great password information at a small price
- By on June 13, 2009 No Comments
Where can cash-strapped security pro's get great information on security basics??
- It's Here; Put Away Your Pre-Conceptions on What an OS Must Be: Part III
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Having witnessed the PC revolution, Traenk pauses to reflect on the GUI world...
- It's Here; Put Away Your Pre-Conceptions on What an OS Must Be: Part IV
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Graphical User Interfaces were important. So was cost control. Just what must an OS be?
- It's Here; Put Away Your Pre-Conceptions on What an OS Must Be: Part V
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It's been a long while since you had a chance to be excited about a new version of an 'old' OS. Now is your chance.
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What's need for Embedded Wave II
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In the last blog in this series, Traenk relates his first experiences with computers and with coding. But now, some years have passed. . .
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Traenk relates his past experience with Operating Systems that goes back 25 years, ok, more than that but he ain't tellin'
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It's a new computer, and it's also a chance to try out a new vendor.
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- Are Intrusion Studies Worth the Money? Still more 2009 predictions
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There are dozens of security vulnerability scanning tools. Increasingly security analysts take great pains to emphasize their hacking skills. Companies pay out great money to find if they are 'vulnerable'. And in the middle of this, Traenk wonders what the point is to the exercise.
- 2009 Security Predictions: Part II
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It's that time of year to see what security developments and surprises are waiting for us in 2009
- Browser Password Managers
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While exploring Chrome as a browser, I stumbled onto some excellent Browser Password Manager criteria and an online test that helps you assess your browser's security
- 2009 Info Security Predictions: Part I
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- Year End Ideas
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I teach a Visual Basic .Net class at the local university. Today, I am tired because this was one special class.
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The growing linkage of embedded controllers to the Internet may provide special risks to our lives. These controllers exist in automobiles, appliances, specialized electronics. What are likely to be some of those special risks that may occur?
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Cisco has sponsored some excellent research on the People Side of Security
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Security isn't found in what you've bought or what patches are applied. It's in the process design.
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- NICE Security Site
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You really need to add this to y0ur stack of security web links: http://enisa.europa.eu/
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All of us developers are being pulled into the embedded world. What's that mean?
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Good books by Gary McGraw predict today's security issues again.
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- I think 2008 will be a real year of change for the Security Practitioner and Security field.
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Center for Internet Security Benchmark is Done!
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I like Open Source, but I don't like vendors who munge versions or who don't update their code quickly enough. That said, can't you type 'make'?
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You scan the available certifications and wonder, "Are They Really Worth the Trouble?"
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VB .Net Free Learning Tools
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SSH as Salvation?
Some years ago I started doing research on SSH, the wonder tool of the security set. I read one article about a clever SSH setup. The administrator’s DMZ hosts could contact the intranet patching server, something normally verboten. The DMZ servers would route through the administrator’s PC and then access the internal patching server. After considering the author’s SSH design, however, I soon recognized definite security impacts to this approach.
Although several major security compromises are made possible through poor SSH design, does that mean that SSH is a likely target? Consider this: SSH is one of the most attacked services. As the SANS Institute states in its current top 20 vulnerabilities roundup, "Of particular interest this year are attacks against SSH." SSH is rated U1, the top UNIX vulnerability. Why is SSH such a target? In this article, you’ll learn why people are implementing SSH on Windows, mainframe, and UNIX devices. We’ll explore port forwarding, a cool SSH capability. Then we’ll take apart the clever administrator’s SSH design, including attacks against key authentication itself.
NOTE
This article will not state the case for SSH, a conversion I believe should still be done as a replacement for plain-text protocols running on most platforms. (And lest you be too comfortable, note that the attack is possible against both commercial and open source versions of the software, including many network appliance vendors’ SSH implementations that are derived from OpenSSH.)
In a later article, I want to discuss what you can do if you’re a firewall or a UNIX administrator. You probably recently implemented SSH as a drop-in security precaution against Telnet and FTP exploits—if so, depending on your firewall and SSH design, you likely just enabled many more exploits.





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