Byte.com: Secure Remote Access With SSH

“Remote access to information is in higher demand as
telecommuting increases. It’s also very convenient to be able to
manage your network from home, especially when your pager alerts
you that mail is down at 3 am.”

“Traditional methods of remote access include Telnet and the “r
services” (rsh, rlogin, and rexec). These are solid, reliable tools
when you’re inside your firewall, but they are inherently insecure
because traffic generated by these programs is not encrypted.
Anyone who can see the traffic on the network can see your data.
Sadly enough, this includes any user names and passwords that are
sent….”

“The secure shell protocol (SSH) is one way to provide
remote access without giving your information to anyone who might
be watching. SSH provides a way to log in to another computer,
like rsh or telnet, while encrypting all the information that is
exchanged between two computers. Be advised that SSH is not the end
of the solution. SSH is a very good place to start, but it doesn’t
replace other security measures. Firewalls and packet filters can
help prevent spoofing. Kerberos, S/Key, and other authentication
systems can be used to further augment the end-to-end encryption
provided by SSH.”

Complete
Story