Free tool identifies risks in secure shell environments

SSH Communications Security, known the world over as the inventor of the ubiquitous Secure Shell and SFTP protocols, today announced the general availability of SSH Risk Assessor (SRA), a free tool that provides users with a report on risk and compliance exposures in Secure Shell environments.

Secure shell risk assessment: Key location and risk-assessment technology available for free.

Secure shell key discovery: Provides broad problem-scope capabilities to provide an understanding of the current state of the Secure Shell environment.

Access compliance: Identifies organization-specific compliance status with relevant standards.

Identity and access governance: Assesses actions needed to achieve compliance.

Widespread mismanagement of Secure Shell keys – including lack of centralized creation, rotation and removal – has left organizations vulnerable to attack and in violation of current and emerging compliance mandates including SOX, PCI, NIST and FISMA.

The SRA tool gives security auditors and administrators valuable decision support with respect to identity and access governance in SSH environments. The tool report highlights known vulnerabilities in the environment, basic statistics on SSH keys deployed and specific violations of best current practices.

Matthew McKenna, EVP and COO, SSH Communications Security, said: “When we surveyed our customers, none had any idea that their network environments were home to over 100,000 lost Secure Shell keys providing root access to their most sensitive data. They had no way to discover how many lost keys they had, no way to find where they were and no way to know how much risk they were taking on as a result. With the release of the free SRA tool, we are making it quick and easy for major enterprises, governments and financial institutions to get a clear snapshot of the level of risk in their Secure Shell environments, giving them the first step toward remediation.”