sshd security

[Terry]

I had the same problem so i setup up hosts.allow to only allow access 
from certain ips i require
This has the affect of killing the connection from any other ip befor 
gettign to any login prompt
example below
sshd : localhost : allow
sshd : 192.168.2. : allow
sshd : 82.41.115.213 :allow
sshd : 216.123.248.219 : allow  <-- public ip i wish to allow of course 
i have changed it
sshd : all : deny

This then shows in log instead of failed login attempts

dot.blah.co.uk refused connections:
Sep 17 22:11:55 dlt sshd[35669]: refused connect from usen-219x113x213x21.ap-US.usen.ad.jp (219.113.213.21)

Regards Terry