Ask Slashdot: FTP Server Honeypots?

An anonymous reader writes "I run an FTP server for a few dozen people, and it seems like every week I have a random IP address connect to my box and try guessing 'Administrator' passwords once every five seconds or so. This poses no real risk to me, since all my accounts have custom (uncommon) names. But if this is happening to me, I would wager lots of people are at risk of low level, persistent, long term password cracking attempts. Is there a way to report the perpetrators, or any action we can take to address this kind of danger?"

Comments

rate limit incoming connections based on IP

[Shakrai]

Easier than banning every overseas IP, IMHO anyway. This is what I do for SSH:

# Allow SSH with a rate limit
iptables -A INPUT -i ppp0 -p tcp --syn --dport 22 -m hashlimit --hashlimit 15/hour --hashlimit-burst 3 --hashlimit-htable-expire 600000 --hashlimit-mode srcip --hashlimit-name ssh -j ACCEPT
iptables -A INPUT -i ppp0 -p tcp --syn --dport 22 -j LOG --log-prefix "[DROPPED SSH]: "
iptables -A INPUT -i ppp0 -p tcp --syn --dport 22 -j DROP

There may be a more eloquent way to do this but it gets the job done.