Security warning over fraudulent login attempts
15/05/2008 11:13:02
Businesses have been warned to check their servers are secure following a significant rise in the number of secure shell (SSH) attacks recorded this week.
The increase in the number of fraudulent login attempts, whereby usernames and passwords are guessed to force access to a system, has concerned a number of network administrators, and now others in the data security industry have been alerted.
An incident handler at the US-based SANS Internet Storm Center produced statistics taken from hacking-prevention site denyhosts.net, showing almost 10,000 SSH attacks on Monday, reports SC magazine.
Scott Fendley, a security handler at the University of Arkansas, described the finding as being indicative of a "significant new trend of which we all should be aware".
A senior security analyst at the University of California John Ives told Security Focus that SSH attacks had always been considered serious, but the past week had seen numbers increase "dramatically".
SSH is a command interface for gaining secure access to a remote computer and is widely used for server control purposes.
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