Re: Are Linux boxes vulnerable to be used by botnets?

Jon M. Hanson wrote:
> Josef Lowder wrote:
>> .
>> Are Linux boxes vulnerable to be used by botnets?
>>
>> This article in USA Today is frightening.
>>
>> http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/computersecurity/2008-03-16-computer-botnets_N.htm
>>
>>
> Probably at least once a day my Linux box that I have co-located is
> probed for a weak password /account through SSH. I'm not sure what
> they would do to the system if they got in and I'm not going to find
> out. When I see an SSH probe happen I track down who owns the IP and
> report it. I also nmap the IP to see what services are running on the
> system.
That seems like too much work =P Most of the probes, ssh attacks, etc.
that I see are from foreign countries and I really don't see much
benefit in reporting them. What I do on all my servers is use 2 little
tools to help stop these automated attacks: DenyHosts
(http://denyhosts.sourceforge.net/) and PortSentry
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/sentrytools/) With these 2, a high
number (I would say 99% but then I have no proof to back it up) of
attacks are immediately stopped in their tracks. If someone is doing a
port scan on your entire server, do you *really* think they're doing it
for a good reason?

-Mike
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