I teach a real-time systems class where students use Beaglebone over the network. Generally, we are behind a protected firewall, but sometimes the students want to debug on other parts of the campus.
By default, one can access the root account without a password. If my students put such a BeagleBone on a network where the IP is externally visible, is it likely that the BeagleBone will become infected by the open-source botnet software Mirai?
I guess it’s a moot point – the root password should be changed before attaching the BeagleBone to a public network anyway!
Josiah
At the very least, you need to set a root password, set a password for
the default user, and disable the "no password" sudo access.
I would also recommend reviewing the open network ports and disabling
anything you don't need to use or that isn't secure. You probably
don't want things like xrdp and xvnc visible on the raw internet.
At-least run:
cd /opt/scripts/un-tweak-image/
sudo ./debian-re-secure-root-ssh.sh
and it'll set a root password and disable "PermitEmptyPasswords"
sshd_config option..
and remove "bonescript", you can just disable disable the two
bonescript system service files..
Regards,
And Cloud9 IDE which runs as root.
I'm looking if any security grad student wants to do a study on how to secure a BeagleBone and keep the ease of use. Just leaving a conference with the guys leading some of the analysis of Mirai out of U of M and I hope they'll take the challenge.