Brute forcing on secured shell servers emphasising the role of cyber forensics – a quali-quantitative study

Abstract

Background Increasing numbers of cyber attacks threaten us personally and professionally. Cyber crimes include obtaining sensitive information (medical or financial) but may extend to organising heinous crimes including murders and aggravated sexual assaults. A major vector of cyber crimes is brute force attacks on secured shell servers. Aim of study This research highlights the prevalence of the intensity of brute force attacks on secured shell servers via quali-quantitative analysis of cyber attacks. Methodology The brute force attacks were recorded over a period of 20 days with the help of logs taken from five dedicated servers installed in a production environment. Results There were a minimum of 6470 and maximum of 22,715 attacks on a server per day. The total number of attacks on all the servers during the study period was 1,065,920. The brute force attacks were mainly targeted at the service network accounts. Conclusion Growth of the field of cyber forensics is the optimal solution to prevent the malicious use of internet services and the commissioning of crimes by this means.