Have I been Hacked?

Forum: Other Help Topics
Topic: Have I been Hacked?
started by: Ruthje

Posted by Ruthje on Jan. 26 2006,09:58

I've been using dsl for a headless mp3player just connected to my network and hifi-set. I use ssh to connect and mp3blaster to let it play mp'3. Recently I wasn't able to connect via ssh anymore. The box refused my password. Because there isn't a monitor on it I couldn't see any boot errors. Yesterday I took out the usb-stick with the frugal installation and plugged it in another computer en and let it start and after boot the word "sorry" was scrolling over my screen. After "control c" I saw that the user "I have no name!" or something was logged in. switching user to dsl or root wasn't working and I get the error something like "this user doesn't excist". Have my box been hacked or are just some files corrupted. I just read on the forum that there were some problems in the 1.5 version with the encrypted backup after mistyping your password? I'm not sure, but I think I was using 1.5 on my mp3-player.

Posted by livinghell on Jan. 30 2006,21:36

it does sound like some one has been tampering with your system i would re install DSL on to your USB stick that way you will be updating DSL and clearing any problems that have been made because of this sadly though you will lose anything on the drive so take a back up first best of luck with that

btw if you dont want to upgrade the DSL most of the mirrors have older versions on and instructions on how to write them to the flash drive.

i wouldnt mind been sent a copy of the flash drive to see if you have had a similar issue to a fried of mine who has done something simalr to yourself but his was in his car PM if you can send me a copy of the flash

Posted by Onikage on Feb. 28 2006,16:37

This can also be fixed, by setting an actual password for root, and disabling the sudo command and the root-access shell.

---with sudo and/or the root access shell it is easy to become root and mess up your system.

Of course if you forget your password you may need to reinstall, but if you set automatic backups your data won't be lost.

Additionally if you can, create a linux password recovery floppy. If you forget your root password this floppy will log you in as root, then you can set a new password for root.