Skip to main content
Raspberry Pi

Return to Question

Tweeted twitter.com/#!/StackRaspi/status/221151037929701376
Incorporated finnw's comment into his question and reworked the title a little.
Source Link
edit approved Jun 19, 2012 at 18:31
Mark Booth
edit approved Jun 19, 2012 at 18:31
Mark Booth
  • 4.4k
  • 2
  • 30
  • 43

How can I protect the Raspberry Pi against intrusion and malware before connecting it to the internet (especially on a public IP address?)?

With the large number of Raspberry Pis in the wild, and the fact that large groups of them are configured identically (when a newly-flashed SD card is installed with one of the few available images), they are likely to be a tempting target for malware, including botnets.

What can be done to mitigate this?

It is reasonably well known that one should change the password for the "pi" user (Debian) and "root" (Arch.) But how about other system accounts (e.g. "tli", "pnd"?) Do any of them have universal passwords that are presumably the same for all units?

And are there any known vulnerabilities in other packages that are installed in the SD images available for the Pi (e.g. because of hardware limitations, or cut-down versions of those packages?)

In particular I am worried about ssh, mysql and any other services that may be running on a newly-installed image.

How can I protect the Raspberry Pi against intrusion and malware before connecting it to the internet (especially on a public IP address?)

With the large number of Raspberry Pis in the wild, and the fact that large groups of them are configured identically (when a newly-flashed SD card is installed with one of the few available images), they are likely to be a tempting target for malware, including botnets.

What can be done to mitigate this?

It is reasonably well known that one should change the password for the "pi" user (Debian) and "root" (Arch.) But how about other system accounts (e.g. "tli", "pnd"?) Do any of them have universal passwords that are presumably the same for all units?

And are there any known vulnerabilities in other packages that are installed in the SD images available for the Pi (e.g. because of hardware limitations, or cut-down versions of those packages?)

How can I protect against intrusion and malware before connecting it to the internet (especially on a public IP address)?

With the large number of Raspberry Pis in the wild, and the fact that large groups of them are configured identically (when a newly-flashed SD card is installed with one of the few available images), they are likely to be a tempting target for malware, including botnets.

What can be done to mitigate this?

It is reasonably well known that one should change the password for the "pi" user (Debian) and "root" (Arch.) But how about other system accounts (e.g. "tli", "pnd"?) Do any of them have universal passwords that are presumably the same for all units?

And are there any known vulnerabilities in other packages that are installed in the SD images available for the Pi (e.g. because of hardware limitations, or cut-down versions of those packages?)

In particular I am worried about ssh, mysql and any other services that may be running on a newly-installed image.

Source Link
finnw
finnw
  • 5.8k
  • 3
  • 33
  • 42

How can I protect the Raspberry Pi against intrusion and malware before connecting it to the internet (especially on a public IP address?)

With the large number of Raspberry Pis in the wild, and the fact that large groups of them are configured identically (when a newly-flashed SD card is installed with one of the few available images), they are likely to be a tempting target for malware, including botnets.

What can be done to mitigate this?

It is reasonably well known that one should change the password for the "pi" user (Debian) and "root" (Arch.) But how about other system accounts (e.g. "tli", "pnd"?) Do any of them have universal passwords that are presumably the same for all units?

And are there any known vulnerabilities in other packages that are installed in the SD images available for the Pi (e.g. because of hardware limitations, or cut-down versions of those packages?)