Logs show failed password for invalid user root from <IP Address> port 2924 ssh2

Posted by Chris Hanson on Server Fault See other posts from Server Fault or by Chris Hanson
Published on 2014-06-12T15:09:20Z Indexed on 2014/06/12 15:27 UTC
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I'm getting a constant flow of these messages in my logs. The port is variable (seemingly between 1024 and 65535). I can simulate it myself by running

sftp root@<my ip>

I've commented out the sftp subsystem line in my sshd_config. These ports should be closed by provider's firewall.

I don't understand:

  1. Why sftp would be selecting a random port like that. It seems to be behaving like FTP in passive mode, but I can't make any sense of why that would be.

  2. Why it can even hit my server in the first place if these ports are closed.

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