Remote desktop, secure?

Khannie

Hello all,

I use remote desktop through a 168bit cisco VPN. I consider this secure. In general though, do people consider the remote desktop feature of XP secure?

I have found it to be far superior to VNC on windows (though VNC on Unix is excellent).

Thanks in advance!

stevenmu

I've heard tell that there's various vulnerabilities in remote desktop and that there's various exploits out there for the script kiddies to play with. I'd guess that sessions through the VPN are reasonably secure but you want to make sure that only people authenticated through that are able to access it. The ports that remote desktop (and remote management and remote admin) should be blocked on your firewall and just VPN access allowed. I'm not sure exactly how you'd do that but I'm sure google can help with that one.

Khannie

Not a bump

I just realised that this looks like an idle chit chat question....The reason I asked is that our IT department have security concerns over remote desktop and might try and stop me using it.

Sleipnir

Well if it's through a VPN then your IT department guys are idiots.
Using it in the clear across the internet may not be secure but through a 168-bit VPN certainly is.