Re: hosting a secure website accessible from only a few IP addresses and users

From: Walter Roberson (roberson_at_ibd.nrc-cnrc.gc.ca)
Date: 06/24/03

  • Next message: J. Reilink: "Re: faked emails with an ip address? is it possible"
    Date: 24 Jun 2003 07:12:20 GMT
    
    

    In article <d04df644.0306231809.53bd087b@posting.google.com>,
    2pac <cal_2pac@yahoo.com> wrote:
    :Thanks for the suggestions
    :a) family has got static IPs
    :b) authenticated user logins (OR logins over SSL) may be useful - but
    :am wondering how good against hacker brute force or dictionary
    :attacks.
    :If popular websites can get hacked - the moment I let someone know
    :that there is a port open (and the identity of the web server
    :software) - I may be susceptible to attack

    You are going to be "susceptible to attack" as long as you
    use your computer on the net (even if not as a server.)

    If you do not use your computer on the net, your computer
    is still susceptible to attacks if someone can convince you to
    load software they sent you. And even if you never run anything
    you didn't write yourself and you never connect to the net,
    you are susceptible to "Van Eckk monitoring" or Tempest-
    type attacks. And if you lock your computer in a shielded room,
    there are attacks based upon monitoring your voltage draw,
    or based upon introducing a spy device ("bug") inside the room.

    Basically, as long as the computer exists, it is "susceptible
    to attack".

    Brute force attacks take *time*. How many connections per second will
    your firewall allow? 1000 perhaps? If the average entropy of characters
    in the passwords is (say) 5 bits [i.e., an assumption that people do
    NOT select password characters very randomly], and if the minimum
    password length is 6 characters [rather on the short side], then there
    would be 2^(5*6) = 2^30 passwords, which is about 10^9. At 1000 per
    second, it'd still take an average of 500,000 seconds to brute force,
    which is about 5 3/4 days -continuous-, under these assumptions of weak
    passwords. Is your setup going to be such that you aren't going
    to -notice- a concerted breakin effort within 6 days?

    -- 
       Come to think of it, there are already a million monkeys on a million
       typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare.  -- Blair Houghton.
    

  • Next message: J. Reilink: "Re: faked emails with an ip address? is it possible"

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