brute force ssh attack

[Nigel Wade]

Matthew Miller wrote:
> On Thu, Apr 28, 2005 at 09:41:17AM +0100, Nigel Wade wrote:
> 
>>For a virus to be viable it has to be communicable. In this instance the 
>>virus required manual "injection". Hence the 0-49 infections in 3 years, 
>>and the virutally zero threat.
> 
> 
> But it wasn't quite manual -- happened through sloppy practices. This is
> somewhat akin to saying that STDs are ~0 threat -- true, but only if you
> follow safe procedures. :)

It was completely manual, the virus didn't install itself. It was injected 
by someone breaking in via ssh and then manually downloading an infected 
file. It's not like a STD, it's like a virus which can only be spread by 
direct injection.

> 
> Where are you getting your "0-49" number from?
> 

That's the number of infections quoted by Symantec.

-- 
Nigel Wade, System Administrator, Space Plasma Physics Group,
             University of Leicester, Leicester, LE1 7RH, UK
E-mail :    nmw at ion.le.ac.uk
Phone :     +44 (0)116 2523548, Fax : +44 (0)116 2523555