In fact, I still keep a copy on my phone just in case, in spite of the fact that I typically use a MacBook Pro nowadays (OSX has a working *nix shell that I can open Terminal with and SSH from all day long, tab the hell out of, have customized nine ways from Sunday for local Git coloring, pre-hooks, branch awareness, etc). No dependencies, no lengthy installation bullshit like Cygwin, no muss, no fuss. It's a self-contained executable that you can keep on a geek stick. For the greybeards (like myself), it's also a quick and kick-ass means of plugging an old laptop into a serial port on the back of a Sun/HPUX/IBM-PPC box. In all seriousness, PuTTY is a quick and dirty way of getting a working SSH shell on a Windows box. Anything can be trojanized, and it's turtles all the way down if you're proposing that by simply using a different application (or suite/kernel/VM/whatever thereof). The Symantec report linked above also shows that (at least for this iteration) the malware version is easy to spot, by hitting the "About" information for the app. Attackers can ultimately use this sensitive information to get the highest level of privileges on a computer or server, (known as 'root' access) which can give them complete control over the targeted system," the researchers explained. "Data that is sent through SSH connections may be sensitive and is often considered a gold mine for a malicious actor. According to the article:Ĭompiled from source, this malicious version is apparently capable of stealing the credentials needed to connect to those servers.
A malicious version with information-stealing abilities has been found in the wild. An anonymous reader writes, though, with a note of caution if you're installing PuTTY from a source other than the project's own official page.
#Putty download page iphone install
One of the best first steps in setting up a Windows machine is to install PuTTY on it, so you have a highly evolved secure shell at your command.