Lisa Casey wrote: > Hi, > > I run several FreeBSD servers. Today I noticed an entry in the auth.log > on one of them that concerns me. The entry is this: > > Nov 12 15:44:29 mail sshd[30160]: Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam for > michael from 89.123.165.3 po > rt 55185 ssh2 > > There is a user michael on the system, but whoever was doing this was > not him. > > I am assuming someone tried to break in using a valid username (michael) > but with an incorrect password. So I just conducted an experiment to see > if I could replicate that log entry using another valid username: mandy. > I ssh'ed into the server, gave mandy as the username with an incorrect > password. The auth.log entry for that attempt is this: > > Nov 14 19:44:54 mail sshd[96194]: Failed password for mandy from > 72.155.127.223 port 51919 ssh2 > > and when I used something called keyboard interactive as the primary > authentication method in my ssh client, I get this: > > sshd[96348]: error: PAM: authentication error for mandy from 72.155.127.223 > > Nothing about Accepted keyboard-interactive/pam. What does Accepted > keyboard-interactive/pam mean? > > Also, in my ssh client, for authentication methods I have a choice of > password, publickey or keyboard interactive. I've always used password, > and never even noticed that keyboard interactive before. What is that? > > Thanks, > > Lisa Casey > Keyboard-interactive includes when the server sends requests such as "Password:" to which the connector responds by typing their password. This is different from entering the password in your client before connecting. Example:
$ ssh [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED]'s password: Try doing similar with the correct password and I bet you will see the "Accepted/keyboard-interactive", it may be possible that michael's password is no longer secure.
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