sshd

[Jan Christian Meyer]

> [...] I can not close myself out with a firewall. I need the
> access to my system over the internet. Am I right that in this case, only
> a good password is protecting me?

If you have a way of transporting a private key file to wherever you need
to log in from (removable media, one last password login, whatever is
secure enough for your satisfaction), you can use public-key cryptography
and disable password based logins altogether.

Take a look at the man pages of ssh-agent, ssh-add, ssh-keygen, and
google around a bit - it is not too hard to set up.

Cheers,
 -Jan Christian