We need to make a distinction between security and obscurity here. The only time changing ports actually hardens a service in any way is when the port requires elevated rights to bind, changing to 1025 for example removes the root requirement. Any actual or theoretical vulnerabilities still exist. If somebody is looking at your server, they'll find the port without much trouble. Alternate ports can remove junk traffic from logs, so there is a benefit, if not entirely a security one.

Rob

Sent on the Sprint® Now Network from my BlackBerry®

-----Original Message-----

From: Alex Dolan <dolan.alex (at) gmail (dot) com [email concealed]>

Sender: listbounce (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed]

Date: Thu, 21 Jun 2012 07:44:57

To: Littlefield, Tyler<tyler (at) tysdomain (dot) com [email concealed]>

Cc: <security-basics (at) securityfocus (dot) com [email concealed]>

Subject: Re: server security

One tip I have is to set SSH to a port other than 22, I don't need to

tell anyone how devastating it is if someone did actually get access

to that service. Putting it on some other port reduces your risk

On Thu, Jun 21, 2012 at 1:27 AM, Littlefield, Tyler <tyler (at) tysdomain (dot) com [email concealed]> wrote:

> Hello:

> I have a couple questions. First, I'll explain what I did:

> I set up iptables and removed all unwanted services. Iptables blocks

> everything, then only opens what it wants. I also use the addrtype module to

> limit broadcast and unspec addresses, etc. I also do some malformed packet

> work where I just drop everything that looks malformed (mainly by the

> flags).

> 2) I secured ssh: blocked root logins, set it up so only users in the

> sshusers group can connect, and set it only to allow ppk.

> 3) I installed aid.

> 4) disabled malformed packets and forwarding/etc in sysctl.

> This is a basic web server that runs email, web and a couple other things.

> It's only running on a linode512, so I don't have the ability to set up a

> ton of stuff; I also think that would make things more of a mess. What else

> would be recommended?

> Also, I'm looking to add something to the web server; sometimes I notice

> that there are a lot of requests from people scanning for common urls like

> wordpress/phpbb3/etc, what kind of preventative measures exist for this?

>

>

> --

> Take care,

> Ty

> http://tds-solutions.net

> The aspen project: a barebones light-weight mud engine:

> http://code.google.com/p/aspenmud

> He that will not reason is a bigot; he that cannot reason is a fool; he that

> dares not reason is a slave.

>

>

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