Re: broute forcing telnet and ssh

[Gregory Boyce <gboyce () badbelly com>]

On Sun, 25 Sep 2005, Juan B wrote:

> Hi Great List !
>
> I need to boute force my server in the company to
> check if it can resist broute forcing ( and check
> passwords strange ) the server is open to the to the
> internal network in telnet and ssh.
>
> can some one tell me about good tools to check this
> issue?

What are you trying to discover by doing this?

I see two possible reasons to brute force SSH or telnet on a server you 
own.

1) To test passsword strength - If you're an admin on the server, then 
this method seems kind of round about.  You already have access to the 
encrypted password file, so you're better off just using a tool like john 
the ripper to test the strength of the passwords.  It will be faster than 
going through SSH or telnet would be.

2) To look for a trojaned sshd - If someone installed a trojan sshd with a 
backdoor username and password, then you might be able to find it by 
applying usernames and passwords known to have been used in existing 
trojans.  I would think there would be better ways to do this as well 
though.