{"id":34446,"date":"2020-04-16T16:00:45","date_gmt":"2020-04-16T16:00:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/security\/blog\/?p=90897"},"modified":"2020-04-16T16:00:45","modified_gmt":"2020-04-16T16:00:45","slug":"security-guidance-for-remote-desktop-adoption","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.threatshub.org\/blog\/security-guidance-for-remote-desktop-adoption\/","title":{"rendered":"Security guidance for remote desktop adoption"},"content":{"rendered":"

As the volume of remote workers quickly increased over the past two to three months, the IT teams in many companies scrambled to figure out how their infrastructures and technologies would be able to handle the increase in remote connections. Many companies were forced to enhance their capabilities to allow remote workers access to systems and applications from their homes and other locations outside the network perimeter. Companies that couldn\u2019t make changes rapidly enough to increase capacity for remote workers might rely on remote access using the remote desktop protocol, which allows employees to access workstations and systems directly.<\/p>\n

Recently, John Matherly<\/a> (founder of Shodan<\/a>, the world\u2019s first search engine for internet-connected devices) conducted some research<\/a> on ports that are accessible on the internet, surfacing some important findings. Notably, there has been an increase in the number of systems accessible via the traditional Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) port and a well-known \u201calternative\u201d port used for RDP. A surprising finding from John\u2019s research is the ongoing prevalent usage of RDP and its exposure to the internet.<\/p>\n

Although Remote Desktop Services (RDS) can be a fast way to enable remote access for employees, there are a number of security challenges that need to be considered before using this as a remote access strategy. One of these challenges is that attackers continue to target the RDP and service, putting corporate networks, systems, and data at risk (e.g.<\/em>, cybercriminals could exploit the protocol to establish a foothold on the network, install ransomware on systems, or take other malicious actions). In addition, there are challenges with being able to configure security for RDP sufficiently, to restrict a cybercriminal from moving laterally and compromising data.<\/p>\n

Security considerations for remote desktop include:<\/p>\n