Opened ports for socket connection. Is it safe? [closed]

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In my VPS I have 2 ports opened to listen incoming socket connection from gps tracking devices. I would like to know the security risks if any, and what are the prevention that need to be done. My customers know the IP address and Port number. Please suggest.

Answer 1

As I see it, the security is not a problem, as long as you accept connections from well known clients. A packet header with some indicators at the begging of the conversation with a random generated password (based on time/date for example) would be enough to acknowledge the client.

At the firewall you should allow those ports to get through.

Also, if the interchanged data is confidential consider encrypting it to avoid someone sniff the data.

There is also a problem if someone wants to open a lot of connections simultaneously, at the server allows a reasonably numbers of open connections at a time, so that the server won't get exhausted.

Answer 2

"I would like to know the security risks if any"

There are ALWAYS security risks when transmitting data.

"and what are the prevention that need to be done"

Implementing a strong encryption algorithm, like AES will secure your data from snooping. Alternatively, you can implement an Assymetric encryption scheme like RSA. This will mean that everyone encrypts data with your public key, and only you can read it with your private key.

Finally, implementing a hashing algorithm to act as a checksum might be beneficial to ensuring the integrity of your information. Using an algorithm like sha1 is considered the standard, although it is a growing opinion that we need to move to stronger algorithms, like the sha-2 family of ciphers.

How all of these things can work together

Using all of these things in conjunction with one another is called Secure Sockets Layer. Read up on this algorithm, and find out if there is a native implementation in your chosen language. A fully working implementation of SSL can assure you that the message is coming from the correct person and the message hasn't been tampered with.