OpenSSH 10.5 released to patch vulnerabilities discovered by AI

OpenSSH has released version 10.5, arriving just five weeks after the previous update. The developers attributed the accelerated release cycle to a surge in security bug reports identified by AI models or created with AI assistance.

The update addresses several security vulnerabilities. Key fixes include a critical ssh-agent locking bypass involving the session-bind@openssh.com extension, which previously allowed remote operations to bypass agent locks. It also patches a realloc use-after-free bug in remote forwarding and corrects the behavior of the restrict keyword in authorized_keys to ensure it properly applies to tunnel forwarding.

New features in 10.5 include the 'ssh -Z' debugging flag, which displays the order of public keys attempted during authentication. The release also introduces improvements for FIDO authenticators, such as the ability to manage touch and verify requirements via ssh-keygen, and optimizes the authentication process by attempting FIDO keys that do not require user presence first.