Thursday 5 November
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Critical OpenSSH flaw lets attackers bypass password login on some Alpine Linux servers

Severity
Critical
Sources
1

A critical OpenSSH password authentication bypass affects Alpine Linux systems using musl libc with PAM disabled, letting a remote attacker log in with one connection if the account has a '' password field and another local account has a $5$ or $6$ hash. Portable OpenSSH 10.6p2 adds an upstream workaround, and Alpine has released fixed packages for its supported branches.

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What to do

  1. Install Alpine's fixed openssh packages (3.21.10, 3.22.8, 3.23.8 or 3.24.4 branches) and restart sshd.
  2. If patching must wait, set PasswordAuthentication no, confirm key-based access works, and keep an existing session open while restarting sshd.
  3. Review logs for 'Accepted password' entries involving passwordless accounts, and check for unexpected doas activity and new authorised keys.
  4. Treat affected machines as compromised if unauthorised access cannot be ruled out.

Written by AI from the sources, checked against them

Full story timeline · 1 update

  1. Thu 5 NovemberOpenSSH Flaw Could Let Attackers Bypass Password Authentication on Alpine Linux ServersCyber Security News

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