What is SSH? SSH (Secure Shell) is a networking protocol that allows a user to be able to connect to a remote computer over an insecure network. SSH is a great way to provide encrypted communication between two computers and prevents eavesdropping. You can perform different tasks with SSH, like transferring a file to a remote computer, or executing commands. By default, SSH uses a password for authentication, which can leave you open to a brute force attack . We will be updating the default configuration of SSH to make it more secure. Changing the Default Port SSH uses port 22 by default. Changing the port number won't stop an attacker from doing a port scan to find our new port number, but it could slow them down. Under a Linux system (which is commonly used on servers), you would edit the config file under /etc/ssh/sshd_config . You can use nano to edit the file: sudo nano /etc/ssh/sshd_config (I'll be using vim instead of nano) Just edit the #Port 22 by removing the pound ...