Re: Accounts on debian.org machines
On Mon, 08 Dec 2003 03:18:53 +0000
Matthew Garrett <mgarrett@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
> Steve Langasek wrote:
> >But an ssh key on removable media is not vulnerable to keysniffing
> >alone, where a password is.
>
> If such behaviour becomes common, the keysniffers will simply copy
> anything that looks like an SSH key that exists on an item of removable
> media. There's no inherent increase in security from using a key on a
> USB device other than the fact that attackers aren't thinking about that
> yet.
The old "security through obscurity" idea, eh? Well, if you *rely* on
obscurity for your security (ie: if an attacker has free reign if they
know the secret you're trying to keep [in this case, that the SSH key is
on USB media]), then sure, there's a problem. It's not a problem,
however, if it's only *part* of a security regimen.
For instance, I'll ask a simple question: does the hacker who installed
the hardware keylogger on my machine know that my SSH key is somewhere
unusual? Do they even know about SSH keys? If either of those answers is
"no", I have effectively averted a compromise, whereas even if they
*didn't* know, but I didn't use an SSH key, they'd have effective
control of my machine.
Some food for thought. Obscurity != security, but I've yet to see any
effective security regimen which did *not* include some obscurity
factors. I've also yet to see anybody post their IP address, userid, and
password for their publicly-accessible servers to a public mailing list
:)
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