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Admin Magazine

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ADMIN - Explore the new world of system administration! ADMIN is a smart, technical magazine for IT pros on heterogeneous networks. Each issue delivers technical solutions to the real-world problems you face every day. Learn the latest techniques for better:

network security
system management
troubleshooting
performance tuning
virtualization
cloud computing

on Windows, Linux, Solaris, and popular varieties of Unix.

http://www.admin-magazine.com/

linuxpromagazine.com » Issues » 2007 » 84 » Charly's Column

The sys admin’s daily grind: WebCalendar

BANNING BRUTES

Author(s): CHARLY KÜHNAST

Users log on to services such as SSH, ftp, SASL, POP3, IMAP, Apache htaccess, and many more using their names and passwords. These popular access mechanisms are a potential target for brute-force attacks. An attentive bouncer will keep dictionary attacks at bay.

When users are allowed to choose passwords of their own volition, they often choose something fairly weak, like the name of a friend or pet. This predictable human behavior is something that the bad guys relish.
All an attacker needs to do is set up a loop of login attempts that references a dictionary list of passwords. After all, chances are very slight that the user has set up a password like 4G&dP9a! for the account under attack.

Read full article as PDF » Charlys_Column.pdf 94.55 kB

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