are you affected?
- is your sshd running on musl? (alpine, openwrt, buildroot, yocto)
- is it not using pam? alpine's openssh-server doesn't by default, or maybe you set UsePAM no
- are password logins still on? they are by default
- is there an account with just * as its password? key-only users, ldap users, root on alpine
- and some other account with a real password?
- then that * account takes any password between 257 and 1024 characters
on alpine's official aws and azure images that's the default alpine user, and it has passwordless doas. so it's root
on debian, ubuntu, fedora or anything else with glibc? going through pam? dropbear? openbsd? you're fine
Ah I agree it's easier to hack. What I don't agree with is the notion that it enables a class of people that couldn't hack before. It's easier to hack, yes, but for the same people who were hacking before.
Ignorant people trying to use ready-made tools for hacking isn't a new thing, it goes back a while, there's even a term for it (script kiddies).
- me, in a comment you already replied to
Yes, and that's what I disagree with. Neither AI nor scripts will make a script kiddie into an actual hacker.
"AI makes hacking easy" is like saying "building houses is now easy because we have cranes". Sure, but if you jump into a crane without knowing what you're doing it's not magically going to make a house appear.
Fair enough; at least we're on the same page as far as what we disagree about.
Your metaphor strays too far from the topic to be relevant. Here's one that I believe is closer and makes your position look as silly as you made mine look:
"AI makes hacking easy" is like saying "ovens make cooking easy" when fires exist.
Many more people who couldn't or wouldn't cook before don't have to worry about measuring or guessing temperature, manual cook times, setting up a cooking surface, etc. Does the meal cook itself? Obviously not - you still need a recipe and plenty of manual effort.
It goes back at least to my teen years, which is.... not remotely recent. (Edit: 90's for the record)