Extend logging of openssh-server - e.g. plaintext password

Nico Kadel-Garcia nkadel at gmail.com
Mon Dec 19 04:56:17 AEDT 2016


On Sun, Dec 18, 2016 at 12:26 PM, Philipp Vlassakakis
<philipp at vlassakakis.de> wrote:
> Please accept my apologies. Sorry if my previous mails sound rude, it was not my intention.
>
> @Nico:
> What do you mean with „setting up a fake server“ ?
> Should I change my SSH-Port to a non-default port and install a SSH-Honeypot like Kippo, which listens on Port 22 as my „SSH-Honeypot-Password-Harvester“ ?
>
> With this solution i don’t have to modify the source code of the openssh-server-package.
>
> Regards,
> Philipp

By setting up a fake server, I mean scenarios like this.

* I have web server in my company with or without passphrase access
enabled called "www.example.com"
* I have dynamic DNS enabled, as well, for laptops.
* Some fool names their laptop "ww.example.com" in my local DNS,
* The new admin at work, unaware of this "we don't allow PassPhrase
based access", tries to log into "www.example.com".
* The new admin uses his password. Having difficulty logging into the
honeypot, he then tries to log in as root or other administrtive
accounts.
* The honeypoyt now has copies of the login names, and passphrases,
stored in cleartext, without having to modify a single line of their
OpenSSH source code or a single byte of their binary.
* Voila: stashed passphrases and login names for the deired "www.example.com".

The possibilities, individually, may not seem to be high. But there
are so very many potential ways to abuse this it seems extremely wise
to enable at all, much less as a built-in feature.


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