SSHGuard

If you run any Unix-like systems, you probably know that the bad guys are trying to break into your server over SSH. You can use fail2ban or sshguard to greatly reduce the chances of a break-in. Below, I show how I setup sshguard on my FreeBSD servers. Its quick and relatively easy, so I consider it a requirement for all of my FreeBSD servers.

First, install sshguard from the ports collection:

cd /usr/ports/security/sshguard
make install

Next, tell FreeBSD to allow it to start by adding this line to /etc/rc.conf:

sshguard_enable="YES"

Then start it and stop it. This will create a configuration file that we'll use.

service sshguard start
service sshguard stop

Now the file /usr/local/etc/sshguard.whitelist should exist. Edit that and add any IP addresses that you might need to whitelist. For example, I whitelisted my network monitor. My reasoning was that it would test if the SSH service was still running every 60 seconds. So this would look like a break-in attempt and the monitor would be blocked after a few minutes.

You might also wish to whitelist certain other hosts, but I don't recommend whitelisting everything in your internal network. If someone did manage to break into your web server or some other system, they could then use "island hopping" to get to this host and break into it, too. So sshguard makes that harder on the attacker.

To add items to the whitelist, just add one IP address or FQDN per line. If you want to insert a comment, you can start the line with a "#" and then write your comment. I highly recommend putting a comment just above every entry. A few years from now, after an IP address is assigned to a different server, you might not remember why it is in your whitelist. Comments can help your future self save time.

Now just start the service back up with this:

service sshguard start

To confirm that it's running, try this:

service sshguard status

That is all it takes. If sshguard sees a suspicious attempt to login, it will add the IP address to the top of /etc/hosts.allow as a "deny" rule. It will take care of things all by itself from now on.

If you find that it blocked an IP by mistake, you can remove the block by just removing its IP from the hosts.allow file. Just be sure that you can really trust that IP. Maybe someone put a rootkit or bot on that host and sshguard is doing exactly what it should be doing. So be confident that its an error before removing the IP.

A few last notes: First, sshguard will log some data in /var/db/sshguard/blacklist.db. As far as I can tell, this is more or less just a log. I think sshguard uses it at startup time, but I'm not sure. If you need to remove the blacklisting from an IP, edit /etc/hosts.allow instead.

Second, there are a few different ways to setup sshguard. One of them involves piping data from syslog into sshguard. Others involve using PF or IPFW instead of hosts.allow. I haven't used those option and don't know the relative advantages and disadvantages of each method. What I've presented here is what works for me. Please feel free to research the options further and do what works for you. If you know why I should consider another method, please leave a comment on this article. I would truly appreciate the advice.

Lastly, don't forget that this is looking for persistent failed logins from a single IP. Advanced Persistent Threats can use botnets to try out one or two passwords from an IP and then one or two from another IP and so on. Patient attackers might also try one or two passwords every few hours until they guess right. People who know you or looked at the password list you keep under your keyboard are much less likely to be stopped by sshguard. The bottom line is simple: sshguard helps reduce risk but security is a mindset and not something any single product can give you. Be smart and be safe out there.

Software License Enforcement

So you manage a few hundred or maybe a few thousand computers. What do you do when it's time to buy software? If you buy too many copies, you wasted money. Too few copies means you're vulnerable to an expensive lawsuit. How do you ensure that you're in compliance and not wasting money?

I solved this problem about a decade ago and sometimes forget that others still face this challenge. If you're one of them, this article was written for you.

If you find yourself in this situation, I highly recommend having a conversation with the folks over at Sassafras Software about their K2 (a.k.a. KeyServer) product. I've been a happy customer for years.

Their customer support is knowledgeable, thorough, and friendly. I've never been on hold for more than 2 minutes or so. In fact, it is kind of like calling a buddy for advice -- no customer number to remember or case number to track. You just get through to them and start talking about your situation.

The product itself is great. You can install it on Windows or MacOS quite easily. I even did an automated install to hundreds of Macs via FileWave without problems. (This should work on Munki, Casper, etc. as well.) This customized installer is already configured with my KeyServer's address, so it connects as soon as it is installed. The computer then shows up in a list of monitored computers. As end users run programs, those programs are added to a list of "discovered" software. You can also add purchases, products, computers, and policies manually.

Here is a recent real-world example from my job. We purchased 500 installations of Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac. I told KeyServer that we had a new product and it checked in with Sassafras about what constituted "Office 2016" and set up some criteria for me. For example, if the user runs OneNote 2016, that computer is considered to have a license to Office 2016. So it is entitled to run Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook as well. Another computer might run Word 2008, but K2 knows that is a different version and doesn't count it as Office 2016.

Then I told it that we had purchased Office 2016 and filled out a form telling KeyServer it was 500 units of single-computer installations, that it was an original license and not an upgrade license, what it cost, my organization's purchase order number, that it didn't expire (i.e. that it wasn't a subscription,) etc. This is great data for tracking the licenses during a future audit. I could pull up a list of every time we purchased this product, how many "seats" we bought, which purchase orders to pull out as proof for the lawyers, and so on. It also helps calculate costs for supporting different products in the future. These kinds of hard numbers can help you make calculations and drive discussions about maintaining products in the future.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, KeyServer will let you choose how to monitor the license usage. It can passively track installations, track frequency of usage, or even enforce licensing. In the previous example, I configured it to allow the first 500 Macs to run Office 2016 to be automatically registered as users of it. After that, the 501st Mac to try to run that particular version of Office would receive a message saying that they weren't licensed to use it. So if someone was "helping out" and installed it when they shouldn't, that would turn up rather quickly. We could then choose to buy additional licenses or have a conversation about who really needs the software. If it turns out that one of the 500 to grab the license automatically shouldn't have it, we could withdraw that license and assign it to someone else. Next year, when computers are replaced, I can move the licenses around. A few years later, when the next version of Office is released, I could run a report to see how many computers actually used the software and factor that into future buying decisions.

There are a lot of features and situations that I didn't cover in this example. My point was just to show how K2 can make many common situations much easier. Given what we pay on it compared to the manpower (and the salary) wasted on walking around doing manual audits, I think K2 is a huge time and money saver. It saves even more time and money if you use the utilization reports to find licenses to move around or drive budgeting of upgrades.

If you manage a few hundred Windows PCs or Macs, I highly recommend a look into what Sassafras Software could do to help you.