SSH versus FTP

File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

FTP is a widely used standard for copying files from one computer to another on the Internet.

• Our recommendation is to use FTP only for anonymous login sessions, for instance in a setup where many anonymous users download various files from a site -a so called "ftp site".
• It is not advisable to use FTP when certain users are given different access rights. In this case the users with more rights (for instance, the ones who are allowed to upload files to a website) will need to use passwords. Since the FTP passwords are sent unencrypted, this poses a big security risk.

Anybody who has access to any computer, or router inbetween a user and an FTP host will be able to log the password and could potentially later use it for his own purpose. Therefore, it is necessary to use SSH whenever there is a need to copy files while using passwords (or keys).

Our recommended setup is to use OpenSSH on the server and Secure iXplorer Pro as clients.

Secure Shell (SSH)

With SSH all traffic (including passwords) is encrypted, effectively eliminating eavesdropping, connection hijacking and other network-level attacks. Increasingly more and more people are coming to rely on SSH for their communication on the Internet.

Using SSH means that your communication can be encrypted with strong encryption.