SSH is the de facto method of connecting to a cloud server. It is durable, and it is extensible — as new encryption standards are developed, they can be used to generate new SSH keys, ensuring that the core protocol remains secure. However, no protocol or software stack is totally foolproof, and SSH being so widely deployed across the internet means that it represents a very predictable attack surface or attack vector through which people can try to gain access.Any service that is exposed to the network is a potential target in this way. If you review the logs for your SSH service running on any widely trafficked server, you will often see repeated, systematic login attempts that represent brute force attacks by users and bots alike. Although you can make some optimizations to your SSH service to reduce the chance of these attacks succeeding to near-zero, such as disabling password authentication in favor of SSH keys, they can still pose a minor, ongoing liability.Large-scale production deployments for whom this liability is completely unacceptable will usually implement a VPN such as WireGuard in front of their SSH service, so that it is impossible to connect directly to the default SSH port 22 from the outside internet without additional software abstraction or gateways. These VPN solutions are widely trusted, but will add complexity, and can break some automations or other small software hooks.Prior to or in addition to committing to a full VPN setup, you can implement a tool called Fail2ban. Fail2ban can significantly mitigate brute force attacks by creating rules that automatically alter your firewall configuration to ban specific IPs after a certain number of unsuccessful login attempts. This will allow your server to harden itself against these access attempts without intervention from you.In this guide, you’ll see how to install and use Fail2ban on a Ubuntu 20.04 server.
