4.27.1 ‘Chokes on SSH-1 ignore messages’

An ignore message (SSH_MSG_IGNORE) is a message in the SSH protocol which can be sent from the client to the server, or from the server to the client, at any time. Either side is required to ignore the message whenever it receives it. PuTTY uses ignore messages to hide the password packet in SSH-1, so that a listener cannot tell the length of the user's password; it also uses ignore messages for connection keepalives (see section 4.13.1).

If this bug is detected, PuTTY will stop using ignore messages. This means that keepalives will stop working, and PuTTY will have to fall back to a secondary defence against SSH-1 password-length eavesdropping. See section 4.27.2. If this bug is enabled when talking to a correct server, the session will succeed, but keepalives will not work and the session might be more vulnerable to eavesdroppers than it could be.