In my opinion Dan Goodin always reports as an alarmist and rarely gives mitigation much focus or in one case I recall, he didn't even mention the vulnerable code never made it to the release branch since they found the vulnerability during testing, until the second to last paragraph (and pretended that paragraph didn't exist in the last paragraph). I can't say in that one case, it wasn't strategic but it sure seemed that way.

For example, he failed to note that the openssh 9.6 patch was released Monday to fix this attack. It would have went perfectly in the section called "Risk assessment" or perhaps in "So what now?" mentioned that people should, I don't know, apply the patch that fixes it.

Another example where he tries scare the reading stating that "researchers found that 77 percent of SSH servers exposed to the Internet support at least one of the vulnerable encryption modes, while 57 percent of them list a vulnerable encryption mode as the preferred choice." which is fine to show how prevalent the algorithms are used but does not mention that the attack would have to be complicated and at both end points to be effective on the Internet or that the attack is defeated with a secure tunnel (IPSec or IKE for example) if still supporting the vulnerable key exchange methods.

He also seems to love to bash FOSS anything as hard as possible, in what to me, feels like a quest to prove proprietary software is more secure than FOSS. When I see his name as an author, I immediately take it with a grain of salt and look for another source of the same information.

I get your point that the exploit existed before it was identified, but an unmitigated exploit that people are aware of is worse than an unmitigated exploit people aren't aware of. Security through obscurity isn't security, of course, but exploiting a vulnerability is easier than finding, then exploiting a vulnerability. There is a reason that notifying the company before publicizing an exploit is the standard for security researchers.

You're right that it's never an OK title, because fuck clickbait, but until it's patched and said patch propagates into the real world, more people being aware of the hole does increase the risk (though it doesn't sound like it's actually a huge show stopper, either).

If someone can gain physical access to your network, you're already fucked.

It definitely receives more clicks. I've posted this link here a day ago, but arstechnicas title is more engaging. My first thought was whether there's been another vulnerability found.

That said, the headline isn't as bad as it could've been.

Why use CBC too? Cha-Cha20-Poly1305 is an AEAD, so both an assymetric plus a symmetric stream cipher.

I thought most SSH servers default to some AES-based cypher like most other programs. Is that not the case?

Since he doesn’t mention it in his ‘fantastic’ reporting, OpenSSH 9.6 was released Monday that will patch this attack.

I am tempted to delete this post just for the article's stupid clickbait headline, but it still will probably cause some people to go update their OpenSSH installs, so... meh.

Anyone who actually wants to know details of the vulnerability should read the website about it which is obviously much better than this article.

Also, since he doesn’t mention it, if on the Internet, the MITM would have to be installed at both end points (client side and server side) to be effective without the patch.

Huh? No. The attacker doesn't need to be in two places or even near either end per se, they could be located at any fully on-path position between the client and server.

A scan performed by the researchers found that 77 percent of SSH servers exposed to the Internet support at least one of the vulnerable encryption modes, while 57 percent of them list a vulnerable encryption mode as the preferred choice.

That means a client could negotiate one or the other on more than half of all internets exposed openssh daemons.

I haven't got too whizzed up over this, yet, because I have no ssh daemons exposed without a VPN outer wrapper. However it does look nasty.

Long dark winters when everyone is home without socializing with people. You have got to come up with something to survive until the two week summer.

Long dark winters when everyone is home without socializing with people. You have got to come up with something to survive until the two week summer.

If someone going through the effort to target you with a MitM over the Internet, that's not going to stop them.

Just diable the affected ciphers and/or update opened.

you missed this part:

For Terrapin to be viable, the connection it interferes with also must be secured by either "ChaCha20-Poly1305" or "CBC with Encrypt-then-MAC," both of which are cipher modes added to the SSH protocol (in 2013 and 2012, respectively). A scan performed by the researchers found that 77 percent of SSH servers exposed to the Internet support at least one of the vulnerable encryption modes, while 57 percent of them list a vulnerable encryption mode as the preferred choice.