It looks like someone may be brute-force scanning Instabox’s SSH login keys, or perhaps Zcode is to blame.
I have five Instabox machines as development environments. Zcode is installed on three of them and accessed remotely via the web; one of the remaining two is not connected to any AI and is used for regular deployments, while the other is connected to a different AI service.
At around 6 p.m. this afternoon—around midnight in China—was the last time I connected to an Instabox machine with Zcode installed and deployed a Cloudflare Tunnel. At that point, all five of my machines had Cloudflare Tunnel installed.
At around 8 p.m. tonight—around 2 a.m. in China—I discovered that some of my Instabox machines could no longer be accessed via SSH. The specific error was as follows:
PS C:\Users\ABcdE> ssh -p 2222 [email protected]
The authenticity of host '[ssh.instabox.sh]:2222 ([34.215.27.177]:2222)' can't be established.
ED25519 key fingerprint is SHA256:DQxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxfxk.
This host key is known by the following other names/addresses:
C:\Users\ABcdE/.ssh/known_hosts:1: [api.instabox.sh]:2222
Are you sure you want to continue connecting (yes/no/[fingerprint])? yes
Warning: Permanently added '[ssh.instabox.sh]:2222' (ED25519) to the list of known hosts.
[email protected]: Permission denied (publickey).
PS C:\Users\ABcdE> ssh -p 2222 [email protected]
[email protected]: Permission denied (publickey).
After checking, all three machines with Zcode installed were unable to connect via SSH.
I’m not sure whether Zcode is responsible, but I’m documenting this here. It’s also possible that someone obtained my login keys and changed something, but I didn’t find any unusual command records when I checked the history. The affected machines have now all been deleted.