Securing an iPhone / iPod touch with installed SSH Server

<p>&nbsp;</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica;">Many iPhone owners have installed an application for the iPhone that provides SSH - Secure Shell - server functionality. This implies the accessability from external hardware such as PCs or Macs. However, this access is not suffieciently secured as it does use standard credentials.</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica; min-height: 14.0px;">&nbsp;</p> <p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica;">Many incident have already ocurred in which an unauthorized access has happened. This can cost a lot of money by losing important data, abuse of sensitive credentials or system destruction. However, the usage of SSH is very comfortable for loading files to an external machine.</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica;">The most recent incident was a Worm that requested some money from the iPhone users to secure the iPhone.&nbsp;</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica;">&nbsp;</p><p style="margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; font: 12.0px Helvetica;">The solution should be usable on Max OS X, Windows and Linux, because I am using all three systems. It is does not matter, if the solution is usable using some tools or the command-line.&nbsp;</p><p>&nbsp;</p>

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Submitted by Patrick Zwickl on Fri, 11/06/2009 - 15:53
1 answer

Changing the root password of an iPhone / ipod Touch to secure the SSH connection

 To secure your SSH connection the password for "root" has to be modified. Please, regularly change this password. Start the Terminal of your Mac or Shell of your Linux computer. For Windows an SSH application such as Putty is necessary.    

  1. Then type the following line of code, but before replace the palceholder "ip.des.iph.one" with the IP address of your iPhone to create the initial SSH connection: ssh root@(ip.des.iph.one)
  2. The standard password for all iPhones is "alpine". Type password and confirm with Enter (Please note that several Unix systems handle backspaces as new input characters).
  3. To change the root password, type "passwd" now.
  4. Then the new password is requested: Type in the new password
  5. Retype the password to confirm it
  6. Disconnect from SSH by using "Exit" (Or stay connected, if you need the SSH connection for other tasks

(Note: For iPhone without installed SSH Server this series of steps is impossible and not necessary)  There is a legal issue that hampers the overall SSH usage: Only applications from the Apple "app store" are legal to be used on an iPhone. The SSH solution is often referred to illegal "Jailbreak" solutions which cannot be recommend from legal perspective ;)However, this issue should not be ignored for all iPhones using such SSH solutions. 

Submitted by Patrick Zwickl on Fri, 11/06/2009 - 16:04

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