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scubbotoday at 4:41 AM4 repliesview on HN

> People understand that reverse hacking can happen when connecting to random ssh server, right?

No, actually, I've never heard of such a vector. How would that work?


Replies

jerrythegerbiltoday at 5:12 AM

An ssh server would exploit a vulnerability in the ssh client when it connects.

For example, openssh has both a client and server. There’s been vulnerabilities in openssh, in the client. Those vulnerabilities aren’t reachable unless you’re connecting to a server attempting to exploit you, so the risk is quite low because you know and trust most servers you’re connecting to with ssh.

To sum it up: Connecting to this server is probably fine, but in doing so most people are doing something significantly riskier without realizing it.

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mr_mitmtoday at 12:31 PM

Here is a recent example. Currently unpatched in Debian stable.

https://www.cve.org/CVERecord?id=CVE-2026-60002

As I understood this, a malicious server can change its host key somewhere during key exchange and trigger a use-after-free in the client, which might be exploitable for code execution.

krautsauertoday at 5:05 AM

Vulnerability in your ssh client (unlikely) or terminal emulator (more common but lower reach).

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buldertoday at 7:12 AM

Agent forwarding would be pretty big, if it for example pushed your git credentials to the remote host.