The Saftey aspect in Remote PC programs

Snowball

Question: How safe are they?

I am at the moment connecting to a PC on the same router as this one by using Window's built-in "Remote Desktop Connection" program. How secure is this? and should I be using another program?

Also, by enabling Remote Desktop Connection, have I opened any doors that people can just keep trying differant passwords till they get in?????

Random

I use www.realvnc.com myself - not a huge fan of Remote Desktop. I find that a good password on that combined with the option to "lock computer when last user logs off" provides pretty good security. They need to crack 2 passwords to get in.

MrPinK

ciaranfo wrote:

I use www.realvnc.com myself - not a huge fan of Remote Desktop. I find that a good password on that combined with the option to "lock computer when last user logs off" provides pretty good security.

I like RealVNC too, but the free version doesn't encrypt the session. I wouldn't use it on it's own over the internet, not without tunnelling it over SSH or taking some other extra steps. While Remote Desktop man not be as feature rich, it is free and secure straight out-of-the-box.

Snowball

MrPinK wrote:

I like RealVNC too, but the free version doesn't encrypt the session. I wouldn't use it on it's own over the internet, not without tunnelling it over SSH or taking some other extra steps. While Remote Desktop man not be as feature rich, it is free and secure straight out-of-the-box.

so its secure anyways then?

does it make a differance, security wise, the fact that both PC's are behind the same router?

I'll see if I can get a full version somewhere ....... some shop of course

Capt'n Midnight

VNC SSH
http://pigtail.net/LRP/vnc/
http://www.ece.utexas.edu/~luo/tightvnc_ssh.html

I'm sure there is an all in one install there somewhere.

MrPinK

I've not used it before, but I've had people recommend Ultra VNC to me, which is free and has built-in encryption (well it's actually a plugin). Interestingly though, it uses the same encryption API and key size as Remote Desktop. Security wise, I think Remote Desktop is pretty solid.

NutJob

Only problem with ultra vnc is weak password encryption dont leave it running unless u firewall access to it

but then again i am paranoid
:-)

Rev Hellfire

If you're concerned with the security of a remote desktop then close it of on the firewall and use a ssh tunnel to access it.