Securing Remote Desktop For System Administrators

How secure is Windows Remote Desktop?

Remote Desktop sessions operate over an encrypted channel, preventing anyone from viewing your session by listening on the network. However, there is a vulnerability in the method used to encrypt sessions in earlier versions of RDP. This vulnerability can allow unauthorized access to your session using a man-in-the-middle attack. Remote Desktop can be secured using SSL/TLS in Windows Vista, Windows 7, and Windows Server 2003/2008.

While Remote Desktop is more secure than remote administration tools such as VNC that do not encrypt the entire session, any time Administrator access to a system is granted remotely there are risks. The following tips will help to secure Remote Desktop access to both desktops and server that you support.

Basic Security Tips for Remote Desktop

• Use strong passwords
• Use a strong password on any accounts with access to Remote Desktop. This should be considered a required step before enabling Remote Desktop. 

Update your software

On advantage of using Remote Desktop rather than 3rd party remote admin tools is that components are automatically updated to the latest security fixes in the standard Microsoft patch cycle. Make sure your are running the latest versions of both the client and server software by enabling and auditing automatic Microsoft Updates. If you are using Remote Desktop clients on other platforms, make sure they are still supported and that you have the latest versions. Older versions may not support high encryption and may have other security flaws.