On 3/21/07, Nicolas Mailhot <nicolas.mailhot(a)laposte.net> wrote:
Le mercredi 21 mars 2007 à 20:42 +0100, Thomas M Steenholdt a écrit
:
> Alexander Boström wrote:
> >
> >> Lets settle for a default configuration with a good balance between
> >> usability and security. Like perhaps disabling root login or something.
> >
> > Taking over a user account is really almost as bad as root access. The
> > typical desktop user is thoroughly screwed regardless.
> >
>
> I agree that compromising a user account is still bad. But not nearly as
> bad as root access (if one must choose), but if root access through ssh
> is disabled by default, attack scripts would have to *guess* a user to
> bruteforce and can't rely on bruteforcing "root" who exists on every
> *nix system.
attackers *do* brute-force usernames, probably because root is usually
secured but you can hope hitting a user account with no password
install pam_abl. It will profile the attacks for you (for exemple on my
system root is the most attacked user but this is dwarfed by one-shot
dictionary-user tries)
Hence my point of havign root login off by default.
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