a simple questions about sshd and PasswordAuthentication

[Jonathan Horne]

On Tuesday 24 October 2006 21:49, Juha Saarinen wrote:
> On 10/25/06, Jeff MacDonald <bignose at gmail.com> wrote:
> > Is there anything inherintaly dangerous or wrong about enabling
> > PasswordAuthentication in sshd_config ?
> >
> > I understand how public keys are better and everything else. And I do
> > use them. I'm just curious.
>
> Probably not, if you have strong passwords and sensible management
> policies. That said, PasswordAuthentication attracts the brute-force
> crackers like flies to rotting meat, so...

agreed.

3 weeks ago, i just firewalled off the port (actually, removed the nat), and 
now require vpn to gain access to my home network.  i was repeatedly having 
pages and pages long nightly security emails of failed ssh attempts.  not any 
more.  if the port aint there... they cant bruteforce it!

cheers,
jonathan