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Hackers changing methods in break-in attempts

An IT consultant is warning of renewed hacker attacks specifically targeted at servers with open SSH ports creating new online security risks, according to reports in the Register.

The attacks are reported to have started around the beginning of July and were spotted by a hawk-eyed IT consultant at Sysadmins as one of his dedicated Linux servers came under attack

"This attack is different in that there appears to be a single list of usernames/passwords and a list of SSH servers to attack," says the IT consultant and developer, Nazar Aziz.

"Bots pick a user name and only attempt a brute force attack three times before the same server is passed along to the next bot."

By passing on the site under attack to the next attacker, with a different IP address, he says, the cyber crooks avoid detection as the attack continues.

The attack has since changed methods and switched from SSH ports to targeting the "root" account on servers.

Monitoring software or intrusion detection systems can help detect brute force SSH break-in attempts.

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