My first hacker attack

Hello guys,

I just want to report with great excitement that my new virtual server got it's very first unsuccessful hacker attack :)

I am developing a bot for the Steem community and soon it will be released for all of you to enjoy the services for free! As I was coding today, I've noticed a new connection to the server which wasn't me! o_O

The attack

Somebody was trying to break my SSH (secure socket shell) password and gain access to the server.
It was a classic brute force attack. Which is similar when you forget your pass and try some combinations :) The difference is that the attacker uses a machine for that and can try thousands of passwords in a minute.

The first thing they try are common passwords, than words, and names. They have a dictionary!
You might going to laugh but the 3 most widely used password is:

• 12345
• password
• 123456

Be sure, that any attacker would try those first:)
Check out this wikipedia article for the most common passwords, I hope yours is not amongst them! ;)

Why there was no danger?

I have a secure password in the server, around 20 characters long.
With that length there is 3.6^39 possible combinations (that's 36 with 38 zeroes behind it). It would take 706 centuries for a powerful machine to break it:) Good luck with that!

About the attacker

I have traced back the attacker's IP address to china but it doesn't mean too much because he could be anywhere. Here are few stats of the used IP:

Choose a strong password!

Here are my advices for secure password:

1. Always choose as long as possible password everywhere
2. Do not use words, names
3. Your key should include upper and lowercase characters at least. Even better if you use numbers and special characters too (@$#&%)
4. Do not use the same password at more than one place

Exciting times :)

^{Image: hack (CC BY-SA 4.0)}