ssh-penetration-testing

ssh-penetration-testing is a skill for Claude Code, Codex from benchflow-ai/skillsbench. It costs 63 tokens per session (3,387 once invoked), scanned C, a copy of ssh-penetration-testing, Apache-2.0.

A methodology for testing the security of SSH services, which provide remote command-line access to computers. It covers service discovery, configuration checks, credential testing, known vulnerabilities, tunneling, and post-exploitation.

In plain words
What is it for?
Use it to enumerate SSH servers, review algorithms and configurations, assess credentials, test vulnerabilities, and document port-forwarding setups.
Why use it?
It helps security testers find exposed SSH services, weak authentication, unsafe settings, and exploitable software before attackers do.

Skill for Claude CodeCodex

About the project

SkillsBench is a benchmark for measuring how effectively AI agents use modular skills—folders containing instructions, scripts, and resources—to complete specialized tasks. It helps researchers and developers evaluate both skill quality and agent behavior, including tasks that require combining multiple skills. The catalogue’s skills and instructions are evaluated as part of this workflow.

benchflow-ai/skillsbench · 1,747 stars · on GitHub

Install

Getting it into your agent

One page per mod, every tool's command on it. A separate URL per tool would split the same page into five that compete with each other.

agentmods
npx agentmods add skills/benchflow-ai/skillsbench/ssh-penetration-testing
Any agent
npx skills add benchflow-ai/skillsbench --skill ssh-penetration-testing
Clone the repo
git clone --depth 1 https://github.com/benchflow-ai/skillsbench

Made for: Claude Code, Codex.

Wrote this? Show the measurements

A badge with what this costs and how it scanned, read live from this page, so it follows the numbers instead of freezing them. Markdown for a README, HTML for a documentation site or a project page.

agentmods badge for ssh-penetration-testing

README.md
[![agentmods](https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/benchflow-ai/skillsbench/ssh-penetration-testing.svg)](https://agentmods.dev/skills/benchflow-ai/skillsbench/ssh-penetration-testing)
Your own site
<a href="https://agentmods.dev/skills/benchflow-ai/skillsbench/ssh-penetration-testing"><img src="https://agentmods.dev/badge/skills/benchflow-ai/skillsbench/ssh-penetration-testing.svg" alt="Measured on agentmods" height="20"></a>
Per session 63 Skills are progressive disclosure: only the name and description are preloaded; the body loads when the skill is used.
When invoked 3,387 The whole file, excluding the scripts and references it only reads on demand.
Security scan C 4 findings. Scan, not verified.
Origin 97% copy Near-identical to another mod in the catalogue.
Token cost

What it costs to keep this loaded

Counted locally with the o200k_base tokenizer, which is exact for GPT models; Claude uses its own tokenizer and its counts differ. Treat this as one consistent yardstick across the catalogue rather than a bill. Prices are per million input tokens.

ModelPer sessionOnce invoked
Fable 5 $0.00063 $0.03387
Opus 5 $0.00032 $0.01693
Sonnet 5 $0.00013 $0.00677
Haiku 4.5 $0.00006 $0.00339

Measured yesterday against content hash a7605138ec97, method: parsed. Prices are Anthropic first-party input rates as of 2026-08-30, from the pricing page.

Security

Grade C, and why

ssh-penetration-testing scanned grade C with 4 findings against 26 rules in 11 categories — prompt injection, anti-refusal, data exfiltration, privilege escalation, supply chain, agent snooping, system-prompt leakage, SSRF and excessive agency — measured yesterday.

A static scan of the body, not an audit. Every finding is printed with the line that produced it so you can judge whether it matters here. A mod is markdown that instructs an agent; that is exactly why what it instructs is worth reading.

Enumerates the file system for secretsmediumData exfiltration

Searching home directories for .env, .ssh, .aws or credential files is reconnaissance for credential theft.

ls -la ~/.ssh/

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Asks for rootlowPrivilege escalation

A mod that escalates privileges can change anything on the machine, not only the project.

# Check sudo privileges

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Reaches for credential filesmediumPrivilege escalation

SSH keys, cloud credentials, git-credentials, .npmrc, /etc/shadow: reading these is how a config file becomes a credential leak.

~/.ssh/id_rsa

Downgraded: this mod is about security review, or the phrase is quoted, so it is likely naming the pattern rather than instructing it.

Makes network callslowCapability

Not a fault in itself. Listed so you know the mod talks to something, and to what.

# Web-accessible keys (check with curl/wget)
Origin

This is a copy

97% identical to ssh-penetration-testing — 9 lines differ, which has more behind it and is treated as the original. This page carries a canonical link to it rather than competing with it.

tasks/fix-erlang-ssh-cve/environment/skills/ssh-penetration-testing/SKILL.md · 486 lines

How it starts

The opening of the file, as written. The whole thing — 486 lines — stays where its author put it; the contents beside it link to each section on GitHub.

SSH Penetration Testing

Purpose

Conduct comprehensive SSH security assessments including enumeration, credential attacks, vulnerability exploitation, tunneling techniques, and post-exploitation activities. This skill covers the complete methodology for testing SSH service security.

Prerequisites

Required Tools

  • Nmap with SSH scripts
  • Hydra or Medusa for brute-forcing
  • ssh-audit for configuration analysis
  • Metasploit Framework
  • Python with Paramiko library

Required Knowledge

  • SSH protocol fundamentals
  • Public/private key authentication
  • Port forwarding concepts
  • Linux command-line proficiency

Outputs and Deliverables

  1. SSH Enumeration Report - Versions, algorithms, configurations
  2. Credential Assessment - Weak passwords, default credentials
  3. Vulnerability Assessment - Known CVEs, misconfigurations
  4. Tunnel Documentation - Port forwarding configurations

Core Workflow

Phase 1: SSH Service Discovery

Identify SSH services on target networks:

# Quick SSH port scan
nmap -p 22 192.168.1.0/24 --open

# Common alternate SSH ports
nmap -p 22,2222,22222,2200 192.168.1.100

# Full port scan for SSH
nmap -p- --open 192.168.1.100 | grep -i ssh

# Service version detection
nmap -sV -p 22 192.168.1.100

Phase 2: SSH Enumeration

Gather detailed information about SSH services:

# Banner grabbing
nc 192.168.1.100 22
# Output: SSH-2.0-OpenSSH_8.4p1 Debian-5

# Telnet banner grab
telnet 192.168.1.100 22

# Nmap version detection with scripts
nmap -sV -p 22 --script ssh-hostkey 192.168.1.100

# Enumerate supported algorithms
nmap -p 22 --script ssh2-enum-algos 192.168.1.100

# Get host keys
nmap -p 22 --script ssh-hostkey --script-args ssh_hostkey=full 192.168.1.100

# Check authentication methods
nmap -p 22 --script ssh-auth-methods --script-args="ssh.user=root" 192.168.1.100

Phase 3: SSH Configuration Auditing

Identify weak configurations:

# ssh-audit - comprehensive SSH audit
ssh-audit 192.168.1.100

# ssh-audit with specific port
ssh-audit -p 2222 192.168.1.100

# Output includes:
# - Algorithm recommendations
# - Security vulnerabilities
# - Hardening suggestions

Read the full file on GitHub · 486 lines

Changes

What this file has done since we first saw it

Hashed on every crawl. A supply-chain change to an agent config is a question of when, not whether, so the history is kept rather than the latest state alone.

  1. yesterday First seen · 486 lines · 63 tokens per session scan C a7605138ec97

Subscribe to this mod's changes

ssh-penetration-testing is a skill published in the GitHub repository benchflow-ai/skillsbench (1,747 stars, last pushed 1mo ago), licensed Apache-2.0. It adds 63 tokens to every session and 3,387 once invoked, about $0.0003 per session on Opus 5. A static security scan graded it C with 4 findings (enumerates the file system for secrets, asks for root, reaches for credential files). It is 97% identical to ssh-penetration-testing, differing in 9 lines, and is treated as a copy.

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