Someone's knocking on my door

03.04.2006, 22:31

Geoffrey Clements

The last few days I've been watching someone (or possibly various people)
trying out a set of user names on my sshd port without success. The
attacks appear to be automated. A "whois" lookup on the ip addresses shows
different organisations in different countries.

The question is is it worth e-mailing the contacts in the whois database or
is that just a waste of time?

03.04.2006, 23:25

Robert Hull

In uk.comp.os.linux, on Mon 03 April 2006 22:31, Geoffrey Clements
<bitbucket> wrote:

> The last few days I've been watching someone (or possibly various
> people)
> trying out a set of user names on my sshd port without success. The
> attacks appear to be automated. A "whois" lookup on the ip addresses
> shows different organisations in different countries.
>
> The question is is it worth e-mailing the contacts in the whois
> database or is that just a waste of time?
>
IME they do not respond

03.04.2006, 23:59

Martin Gregorie

Geoffrey Clements wrote:
> The last few days I've been watching someone (or possibly various people)
> trying out a set of user names on my sshd port without success. The
> attacks appear to be automated. A "whois" lookup on the ip addresses shows
> different organisations in different countries.
>
> The question is is it worth e-mailing the contacts in the whois database or
> is that just a waste of time?
>
Depends.

Yahoo seem to be fairly responsive to such complaints. So do some of the
smaller American ISPs.

04.04.2006, 04:12

John

Geoffrey Clements <bitbucket> wrote:
> The last few days I've been watching someone (or possibly various people)
> trying out a set of user names on my sshd port without success. The
> attacks appear to be automated. A "whois" lookup on the ip addresses shows
> different organisations in different countries.
>
> The question is is it worth e-mailing the contacts in the whois database or
> is that just a waste of time?
>

I get two thousand or so a day on one machine been going up steadily for
years. Occasionaly make the effort to moan if one annoys me particularly
for some reason. Never had a response but have a go you may get lucky.

04.04.2006, 09:16

Paul Black

Geoffrey Clements wrote:
> The last few days I've been watching someone (or possibly various people)
> trying out a set of user names on my sshd port without success. The
> attacks appear to be automated. A "whois" lookup on the ip addresses shows
> different organisations in different countries.
>
> The question is is it worth e-mailing the contacts in the whois database or
> is that just a waste of time?

Your best bet is to assume that the people you will email do not care
and to automatically block the IP addresses of those trying:
http://www.denyhosts.net

04.04.2006, 09:24

Gordon Henderson

In article <44319424$0$1169$5a6aecb4>,
Geoffrey Clements <bitbucket> wrote:
>The last few days I've been watching someone (or possibly various people)
>trying out a set of user names on my sshd port without success. The
>attacks appear to be automated. A "whois" lookup on the ip addresses shows
>different organisations in different countries.
>
>The question is is it worth e-mailing the contacts in the whois database or
>is that just a waste of time?

Waste of time. If you can, firewall your server, unless you really do need
to ssh in from all over the world.

Build up a list of the names they are using and never have a login-name
that's in that list.

(My list is currently at [url down] 9500 names so-far,
but I haven't updated it for a few weeks)

Never ever ssh in from a public terminal - you never know what keylogging
software, etc. might be running on it.

Gordon

04.04.2006, 10:29

Greg Hennessy

On Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:31:15 +0100, Geoffrey Clements
<bitbucket> wrote:

>The last few days I've been watching someone (or possibly various people)
>trying out a set of user names on my sshd port without success. The
>attacks appear to be automated. A "whois" lookup on the ip addresses shows
>different organisations in different countries.

No surprises there.

>The question is is it worth e-mailing the contacts in the whois database or
>is that just a waste of time?

A waste of time.

Your best bet is to put something on there to drop ssh connections once the
shotgunner goes above a particular failure rate. There's a number of ways
one can do this.

greg

04.04.2006, 11:06

Geoffrey Clements

"Gordon Henderson" <gordon> wrote in message
news:fnl1
[..]
>
> Build up a list of the names they are using and never have a login-name
> that's in that list.
>
> (My list is currently at [..] 9500 names so-far,
> but I haven't updated it for a few weeks)
>
> Never ever ssh in from a public terminal - you never know what keylogging
> software, etc. might be running on it.
>

ok, thanks for the advice everyone. Looking through my logs this has been
going on since October - I'm glad I've used "strong" passwords and insisted
that my users (i.e. family members) do the same even though they think I'm
being ... well ... just geeky :-)

04.04.2006, 11:07

Geoffrey Clements

"Greg Hennessy" <me> wrote in message
news:hmnb
> On Mon, 03 Apr 2006 22:31:15 +0100, Geoffrey Clements
> <bitbucket> wrote:
>> No surprises there.
>> A waste of time.
>
> Your best bet is to put something on there to drop ssh connections once
> the
> shotgunner goes above a particular failure rate. There's a number of ways
> one can do this.
>

Cheers Greg , any pointers?

#10

04.04.2006, 11:56

Nick Kew

Gordon Henderson wrote:

> Waste of time. If you can, firewall your server, unless you really do need
> to ssh in from all over the world.

Yeah, great. Then go for a weeks conference (abroad, with ample 'net
access but different 'phone jacks so you can't just dialup your ISP)
and curse yourself for locking yourself out.

> Build up a list of the names they are using and never have a login-name
> that's in that list.

Even spammers are using random-looking lists.

I just disable username/password login over ssh altogether,
and use a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. Saves having to memorise
passwords, too.

#11

04.04.2006, 11:59

Greg Hennessy

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 11:07:09 +0100, "Geoffrey Clements"
<geoffrey.clementsNO> wrote:

>
>"Greg Hennessy" <me> wrote in message
>news:hmnb
>
>Cheers Greg , any pointers?

Loads of options here

[url down]

Given most of my daily *nix exposure is now on the dark side :-), I use

http://danger.rulez.sk/index.php/bruteforceblocker/

which can be allegedly tweaked to use iptables.

greg

#12

04.04.2006, 12:11

Stephen Patterson

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 11:06:33 +0100, Geoffrey Clements wrote:
> ok, thanks for the advice everyone. Looking through my logs this has been
> going on since October - I'm glad I've used "strong" passwords and insisted
> that my users (i.e. family members) do the same even though they think I'm
> being ... well ... just geeky :-)

Something remarkably similar got me started on requiring valid ssh keys for
login, and refusing passwords.

#13

04.04.2006, 14:01

Darren Davison

On 2006-04-04, Nick Kew <nick> wrote:
> Yeah, great. Then go for a weeks conference (abroad, with ample 'net
> access but different 'phone jacks so you can't just dialup your ISP)
> and curse yourself for locking yourself out.

heh, done that :)

> I just disable username/password login over ssh altogether,
> and use a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. Saves having to memorise
> passwords, too.

agreed, a "pub key only" setup makes me feel a lot safer: dictionary
attacks just won't work. If the log entries are irritating, look at
some dynamic solution that locks out IP addresses when they start
attacking you.

#14

04.04.2006, 14:05

Geoffrey Clements

"Nick Kew" <nick> wrote in message
news:8ln1
> Gordon Henderson wrote:
>> Yeah, great. Then go for a weeks conference (abroad, with ample 'net
> access but different 'phone jacks so you can't just dialup your ISP)
> and curse yourself for locking yourself out.
>> Even spammers are using random-looking lists.
>
> I just disable username/password login over ssh altogether,
> and use a ~/.ssh/authorized_keys. Saves having to memorise
> passwords, too.
>

ahhh ... I use authorised keys too but didn't realize (or had forgotten)
that you could disable password logins, I know what I'm doing tonight!

#15

04.04.2006, 14:08

Geoffrey Clements

"Greg Hennessy" <me> wrote in message
news:pjbc
> On Tue, 4 Apr 2006 11:07:09 +0100, "Geoffrey Clements"
> <geoffrey.clementsNO> wrote:
>>
> Loads of options here
>
> [..]
>> Given most of my daily *nix exposure is now on the dark side :-), I use
>
> [..]
>
> which can be allegedly tweaked to use iptables.
>

oooo nice - ta very much1

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