The role of a SSH secure file transfer client The article Roles of Server and Client Keys in Secure File Transfers offers a very informative discussion on public key encryption and authentication. Even if an attacker is able to obtain a user’s login credentials, he won’t be able to login without the user’s private key. This second method, known as public key authentication, enhances the authentication process quite considerably. And the second one asks for something only the user is supposed to have: the user’s private key. The first one asks for something only the user is supposed to know: the user’s username and password. That’s because an SFTP server can apply two methods of authentication. SFTP can make things more difficult for them crooks. More technically skilled individuals can even carry out a brute force attack on the server itself and steal a bunch of usernames and passwords. There are many sinister ways of obtaining passwords.Ĭrooks can perform various social engineering acts like shoulder surfing, phishing, or simply impersonating a legit user and calling a gullible Help Desk agent. But if the connection is encrypted, then those login credentials are already safe, right? Wrong. Now we all know just how easy it is to obtain those login credentials using a packet sniffer. To authenticate users connecting to the server, file transfer methods like FTP only require a username and password. Notice how the transmitted data is no longer comprehensible. Here’s a screenshot of the same hacking tool shown earlier, this time displaying an attempt to eavesdrop on an SFTP connection. Thus, any attempt to eavesdrop on an SFTP file transfer using a man-in-the-middle attack will not succeed. Decryption is done at both ends, i.e., at the server and at the client. In an SSH file transfer, data is encrypted throughout the SSH connection. The data can only be made readable again after it has been decrypted. It provides stronger authentication SFTP encryptionĮncryption renders data unreadable. It encrypts the file transfer connection andĢ.
SSH File Transfer Protocol protects file transfers from various threats. To know more about sniffing, man-in-the-middle attacks, how such attacks are carried out, and how encrypted file transfers defeat them, read the article Countering Packet Sniffers Using Encrypted FTP. Once the crooks have obtained our login credentials, they can just simply login to our FTP server and grab whatever files they find.
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