Lax SSH Key Management A "Big Problem" 212
cstacy writes "Tatu Yionen, inventor of SSH, says he feels
'a moral responsibility' to come out of retirement and warn that a 'little-noticed problem' could jeopardize the security of much of the world's confidential data. He is referring to the management (or lack thereof) of SSH keys (i.e. 'authorized_keys') files. He suggests that most organizations simply allow the SSH key files to be created, copied, accumulated, and abandoned, all over their network, making easy pickings for intruders to gain access. Do you think this is a widespread problem? How does your company manage SSH keys?"
cstacy's summary here is accurate, but as charlesTheLurker notes, the article is a bit over the top: "The Washington Times claims that there's a huge vulnerability in ssh. It turns out that some reporter there has discovered that you can do passwordless login with the software, and has spun this into a story of a dangerous vulnerability. Sigh."
Passwordless login (Score:5, Funny)
I've just noticed a huge vulnerability in keyless entry on cars - you can open the door without a key!
** just so we don't have a story without a car analogy **
Re:who is doing this? (Score:5, Funny)
I always run my backup scripts in chroot environments. I've also found that, as a bonus, they complete many orders of magnitude faster and use significantly less space. Huge wins all around.