Company
Date Published
Author
Yair Mizrahi, JFrog Security Research Team Leader
Word count
2404
Language
English
Hacker News points
None

Summary

The SSH Terrapin attack (CVE-2023-48795) exploits a vulnerability in the SSH protocol, specifically targeting cryptographic information truncation, thereby affecting a range of SSH client and server implementations like OpenSSH, PuTTY, and FileZilla. This attack facilitates a man-in-the-middle scenario where attackers can manipulate the SSH handshake process, resulting in a signature downgrade and the potential bypass of keystroke timing obfuscation, which compromises the security of SSH connections. Mitigation efforts include disabling the vulnerable ChaCha20-Poly1305 cipher and ensuring that both client and server are patched with the latest security updates. OpenSSH addressed the vulnerability by implementing a strict Key Exchange (KEX) protocol to prevent unexpected packet manipulations and reset sequence numbers, which was released in OpenSSH version 9.6p1. Additionally, JFrog Security Essentials and Advanced Security tools can assist in identifying and resolving vulnerabilities across codebases and artifacts.