OT: password crackers

[Kevin MacNeil]

On Wed, Feb 08, 2006 at 06:41:30AM +0000, Toby Kelsey wrote:

> (Off-topic as it's not Ubuntu-specific, but is relevant to Ubuntu
> users) I've just realised there are current password cracking
> attempts against my home box (breezy).

This is extremely common on any externally accessible computer with
ssh running on the default port. If you're behind a router you could
forward queries from (say) port 234 to port 22 on your computer. I
have done this when I needed to ssh into another machine and all break
in attempts ceased. These attempts are nearly always simple scripts
that scan for computers running a server on port 22. They're annoying,
but likely not dangerous. 

You could also use the Allow_Users directive to only allow logins from
a few specific users.

-- 
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	A crisis is when you can't say "let's forget the whole thing."