Trick user to send private key password to compromised host

[Dan Yefimov]

On Tue, 13 May 2008, Roman Fiedler wrote:

> > What the attacker can gain from discovering private key encryption password?
> > The private key itself is located on the host the ssh is invoked on, not on the
> > remote and probably compromised one.
> 
> This is correct, but
> 
> a) the attacker could have captured the key before by other means, but 
> it was not yet useful (e.g. from some backup that became accessible, 
> from some network dump when the key was stored via nfs/cifs once)
> 
The private key is NEVER transmitted via the network by SSH. That is why the 
public key authentication is by default secure.

> b) the password could have been used  also for other resources
> 
This problem along with backups or NFS/CIFS traffic dumps being available to 
the attacker has nothing to do with OpenSSH at all. Those are political and too 
generic issues. If you care so much about security, keep your backups in a 
secure place and never use NFS-backed homes over insecure networks. As for 
CIFS, AFAIK it can use SSL.
-- 

    Sincerely Your, Dan.