Greetings,
Just logged a brute force attack on our server, but something strange shows up - the Plesk Database appears to be accessed and a query for root password takes place. Here's a few lines from the log - a couple of attempts at guessing the root password, then the strange database access. Can anybody tell me what's going on here, and how the database was accessed via plesk sshd? Thanks in advance.
- john silvey

Sep 19 19:42:42 plesk sshd[31995]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:64.246.20.5 port 59650 ssh2
Sep 20 00:42:42 plesk sshd[31996]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:64.246.20.5 port 59650 ssh2
Sep 19 19:42:44 plesk sshd[31995]: Authentication started for user root
Sep 19 19:42:44 plesk sshd[31995]: Plesk DB connection established successfully
Sep 19 19:42:44 plesk sshd[31995]: Querying SELECT password, type FROM psa.accounts as a, psa.sys_users AS s WHERE a.id = s.account_id AND s.login='root'
Sep 19 19:42:44 plesk sshd[31995]: No user 'root' found
Sep 19 19:42:46 plesk sshd[31995]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:64.246.20.5 port 59650 ssh2
Sep 20 00:42:46 plesk sshd[31996]: Failed password for root from ::ffff:64.246.20.5 port 59650 ssh2
Sep 20 00:42:49 plesk sshd[31996]: Connection closed by ::ffff:64.246.20.5

uuuhhhhh, never mind - it turned out to be my server provider's tech support (I didn't recognize the IP ...). I had provided them with the admin pwd and they were already logged in as admin at that point, thus the ability to run the DB query ...