Security

Hard-to-guess passwords are important to securing your network from intrusion. But think about it from the perspective of someone (or their robot app) trying to break in. They need to also pick the right user name and point of entry, and have enough opportunity and patience to repetitively guess until they hit on the right combination. You’ll quickly see that other measures are just as significant – and easier to implement on your OpenSSH server.

You’ve set up a server and your users are happily transferring files with apps like Filezilla or Cyberduck. You know that plain FTP is not secure, so you’re requiring secure FTP (SFTP). Very nice so far – no FTP server required. Only problem is, your users also have SSH access, and that creates a potential security vulnerability. Their accounts could be used (or exploited) to run commands, when all you want to allow them is uploading and downloading files.