Re: Secure FTP

From: Karl Levinson, mvp (levinson_k_at_despammed.com)
Date: 06/16/05 

Date: Wed, 15 Jun 2005 21:16:40 -0400

"MS-News" <nospam@nowhere.com> wrote in message
news:uWWer7dcFHA.1392@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
> Im looking for a windows secure ftp program. Any thing stand out ?

What do you mean by secure? By default, FTP is not encrypted across the
network, and the password and data can theoretically be sniffed or hijacked
by a man in the middle of the network transmission.

If you mean you need the transmission to be encrypted, there are some
possible suggestions at http://securityadmin.info/faq.asp#ftpencryption
Unless you use WebDAV over HTTPS or FTP over IPSec over VPN, any encrypted
FTP solution is probably going to require installing a third party
non-Microsoft proprietary server and give all the clients a matching FTP
client to install as well.

If the data you are serving up does not need to be password protected, just
using anonymous FTP prevents passwords from being captured without requiring
you install a third party encryption FTP application.

If you mean you don't want your server to be hacked, Microsoft IIS FTP on
Windows Server 2003 is fairly secure, as long as you configure it
correctly... but except for the previously mentioned possibilities of IPSec
or VPN, it doesn't come with encryption as an option by default.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: firewalls that can ssl ftp?
    ... Secure Transfers ... Bruce Schneier's Blowfish encryption for data transfers. ... Secure SSL based Web Administration Portal ... Works with other FTP Clients/Servers ...
    (Security-Basics)
  • Re: Secure FTP hosting
    ... Just a note that the only way that an FTP site is truly "secure" is if the ... SSL encryption which only protects files IN TRANSIT; ... upload folder to a different folder or delete the files from the local PC ...
    (sci.med.transcription)
  • RE: Encryption for FTP/MAil/Web
    ... Subject: Encryption for FTP/MAil/Web ... Tunneling ftp through ssh ... ssl-ftp can encrypt the control & data channel; ... As for ssl-ftp servers, I only found one RFC compliant one for Windows; ...
    (Security-Basics)
  • Re: ftp site?
    ... Gisele, just FYI, the only way you can really secure files when sending ... them by FTP is to apply encryption to the files themselves. ... is SSL encryption, which only protects the files in transit. ... because even if someone could hack the server or if the ...
    (sci.med.transcription)
  • Re: How to secure FTP?
    ... >> So I am also hearing in this thread that secure FTP isn't really ... It's meant more for encryption than anything else? ... > and password are required by the server in order to log on, ... > other mechanisms (such as SSL) that are supported by a number of third ...
    (microsoft.public.inetserver.iis.ftp)