New Terrapin Attack Threatens SSH Protocol Security: What You Need to Know
Researchers from Ruhr University Bochum have discovered a vulnerability in the Secure Shell (SSH) protocol, known as the "Terrapin Attack." This attack allows an attacker to downgrade the security of an SSH connection by manipulating the sequence numbers during the handshake process. The attack can be used to remove encrypted packets from the beginning of an SSH session without detection, potentially leading to unauthorized access or data tampering. The vulnerability affects many SSH client and server implementations, including popular ones like OpenSSH, PuTTY, and KiTTY. The researchers recommend two changes to the SSH specification to address the issues: resetting sequence numbers to zero when encryption keys are activated and authenticating a hash of the full handshake transcript at the start of the secure channel.