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Is leaving Remote Desktop enabled a security risk?


RichTJ99

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Hi,

I want to leave remote desktop enabled on a server in my home so I can access it from the outside. Is there anything I can do to make it more secure? Is PCanywhere just as "easy" to access?

I would like to use RC because any PC can use it (with xp pro anyway) (plus my pda can get to it as well)?

Any suggestions?

Thanks,

Rich

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Well, Im not really an expert on RDP, but for starters, how secure is your RDP password? Have you made sure that any access from the outside can do ONLY what it should (ie, no full admin rights is my thought)? If youre confident about the Windows-enforced security, I would also be aware of the following:

http://secunia.com/advisories/15605/

http://secunia.com/advisories/16071/

and make sure your patches are up to date to protect against previous issues.

If anyone else has any input, I would appreciate it, since im a little curious about any other known issues with RDP.

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yeap, it's a big security risk, once someone has gained access to using an exploit they can do whatever they want on your system.

best protection you have is to use a very strong password, containing a-z A-Z 0-9 and maybe some additional characters like !@#$%^&*()_+ etc...

or maybe you could get a software firewall such as outpost pro, and set it up to only allow inbound connections on certain IP's, example the IP Range of the company you work at, etc...

Edited by Bi0haZarD
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This is what I would do (not that I am right now, for several reasons anyway):

- Install Hamachi on your computer ( http://www.hamachi.cc ). Make sure it is one of the 1.0 BETAs.

- Follow the instructions to create a network.

- Close the 3389 port for RD on your router/firewall (whichever you have, if its been opened) but leave RD enabled.

- Leave RD enabled.

- On the machine from where you will be connecting, install Hamachi and add it to your network which you created on the other machine. Now connect to your machine using the 5.x.x.x address you were assigned on the machine you are trying to connect to.

More info: http://forums.hamachi.cc/viewtopic.php?t=916

Hamachi will create a secure direct-connection UDP-tunnel between you and other computers.

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