libssh vulnerability exposes thousands of servers to hacking

[rakhirhif8963]

The vulnerability may not be as bad as it seems, as most servers use the openssh library to support Secure Shell ( SSH ) authentication protocol logins on the server side, notes ZDNet .

libssh is another popular library for SSH support. A vulnerability in it allows an attacker to bypass authentication and gain access to a server with SSH without entering a password by sending the string SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS instead of SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_REQUEST, which the server usually expects and which serves as a signal for libssh to initialize the authentication procedure.

Due to a bug in the program code, libssh greece mobile database the SSH2_MSG_USERAUTH_SUCCESS string as a message about successful authentication and provides the attacker with access to the local server.

The vulnerability, assigned the index CVE-2018-10933, appeared in libssh version 0.6.0, released in January 2014. It was discovered by Peter Winter-Smith of the NCC Group. The bug was fixed in versions 0.8.4 and 0.7.6 that were released recently.

A simple search using the Shodan engine showed that the library flaw affects at least 3,000 servers, according to Amit Serper, head of security research at Cybereason.

From a programming perspective, the bug looks serious, but its real-world implications are small. Because most servers, IoT devices, and PCs support SSH using the openssh library, not libssh.