What Should I Do if My SSH Private Key Is Compromised?

1 min readUpdated 15 April 2026

Steps to take and security measures to implement when your SSH private key has been compromised

If you believe your SSH private key has been exposed or compromised:

Remove the corresponding public key from your Vultr account to prevent further access to any instances using that key.
Generate a new SSH key pair and securely add the new public key to your account.
Audit your instances to check for unauthorized access, especially on critical servers.

Removing the key immediately revokes its access. Follow up by reviewing and rotating other affected credentials.

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What Should I Do if My SSH Private Key Is Compromised? | Vultr Docs