Security flaw in remote computing revealed

NEWS A security hole has been discovered in Finnish security company SSH's remote access software, according to security bulletin BugTraq. The vulnerability exists in SSH Secure Shell 3.0.0 for Unix, which functions similarly to Telnet by allowing a computer user to log on to a remote device and run a program. SSH reported the vulnerability to BugTraq, and said only user accounts with password fields consisting of two or fewer characters can allow unauthorised access to the system. Janne Saarikko, Secure Shell product manager at SSH, said the security problem only affects small number of systems. "Most companies running their machines on Unix will have more sophisticated access control than just a password," he said. SSH said upgrading to SSH Secure Shell 3.0.0.1 fixes the problem and is available for download from http://www.ssh.com