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I would like to know if it is possible for someone who steals your ubuntu username and password to remotely access your ubuntu user account on your computer and even see what you are doing when you are logged in,

thank you in advance for your help...

4 Answers 4

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Unless you have some remote access system installed like SSH or a Remote Desktop program, it is not possible without having physical access to the machine.

However in the unlikely chance that there is such a large bug in Ubuntu that allows someone to do just that- I think we'd all need to take a step back.

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Should someone get your password, they would not able to do either of those, unless you install an SSH server on your computer, which (I think) does not come by default.

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Yes, it would absolutely be possible for someone to remotely access your computer with your user name and password. There are many ways to do this (ssh, vnc, etc).

The good news is that these backdoors are disabled by default, but if you have opened one of these backdoors in the past for your own use (I know I have), in many cases your username and password will get them in.

Or, if this person who knows your password has had physical access to your machine, I would assume they have already opened several backdoors into your machine.

Maybe I'm paranoid, but I would never trust another user with my password - and if someone stole my login information for a computer, I would no longer trust that computer.

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Can they see what you are doing when you are logged in ?

If they have access to remote desktop program , such as Remmina - probably. I havent used one so can't say for sure. I've used telnet and ssh. If it's ssh or telnet - most likely not. They certainly can list what processes/programs you are running with ps aux | grep username but I doubt they can see you actually typing that in.

Speaking of Remmina, if I'm not mistaken, you can set it up such that there would be a second password for accessing your desktop remotely.

Stolen password

You could address that with changing your password to something else with passwd username. Among other things, I suggest you set up your password to expire after a period of time. This answer addresses how you can set up password expiration.

Preventing unauthorised access

Remove all possible points of access - remote desktop software and block ssh. Make another account for admin tasks and use yours as regular user, without sudo access. Make your sudo time out also. Read up on some other security hardening tips.

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  • Of course, the best defense is to disconnect your machine from network if you are not using it or power off at all Mar 31, 2015 at 2:58

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