Security of ssh across a LAN, public key versus password

[David Lang]

Jochen Bern wrote:

> Subverting your workplace machine - the same account you log in as, or even a 
> superuser - gives the attacker a lot of possibilities, essentially getting 
> his hands on all data that passes through that computer, from keystrokes to 
> (before-/after-encryption) network communication to the contents of your 
> screen. If that's a scenario probable enough to make it a concern, and the 
> consequences for the other hosts in your LAN important enough to consider, 
> the question to answer is not "which auth protocol spoken *by the subverted 
> machine* is a bit harder to catch as well" but "how do get I get the relevant 
> secrets *off* that machine and into an *actually* secure location".

I will say that there have been a lot of cases of org having all of their 
machines accessible via SSH (with certs) from the Internet, only to have 
attackers roam freely through them after an admin laptop is compromised. You 
need soe other security mechanism that can't be copied and used from an 
unapproved system (this could be location/IP based, but people are too mobile 
for that nowdays, so using something off the machine is needed)

and given that people want to use mobile devices for access, relying on 
messages/apps on the mobile device is not that good.

David Lang
-------------- next part --------------
_______________________________________________
openssh-unix-dev mailing list
openssh-unix-dev at mindrot.org
https://lists.mindrot.org/mailman/listinfo/openssh-unix-dev