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>It solves none of your problems

Wrong, it solves tons of them.

>adds complexity and cost

Almost zero complexity and cost. Maybe if you're a bad at sysadmin work it adds cost and complexity.

>defense without corresponding increases to attacker costs.

It adds a _huge_, almost incalculable cost increase to attackers.

>If you believe there are unknown OpenSSH attacks, you can't coherently believe that port knocking is a real defense, since port knocking doesn't do anything to protect the SSH channel that attacks will be carried out in.

Looks like you don't understand the concept of 0-days. Several CVEs we're listed elsewhere. I suggest researching 0-day exploits so you understand how port knocking mitigates them.

Port knocking mitigates 0-days.

>Instead, if you're actually worried about OpenSSH vulnerabilities, you shouldn't be exposing SSH to the public Internet at all.

I don't disagree here, VPN is a great solution. Nonetheless, for some shops simple port-knocking on a bastion host solves, a lot of these issues, and removed the complexity that VPNs add.

>I'm not super worried about OpenSSH server vulnerabilities, but I would never recommend that teams leave SSH exposed; they should just hide that stuff behind WireGuard.

No one is super worried about things like shellshock, heart bleed, etc. until they happen.

Port knocking solved a lot of problems, protects you from zero-days, and makes SSH noise a non-issue (huge signal-to-noise gains).

Used in production for years. It's fantastic.




Port knocking adds a huge, almost incalculable cost increase to attackers. I'm going to remember that one, thanks!




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