One sure way to keep hackers from attacking your remote clients is to change the RDP Port in Remote Desktop. Here we are going to discuss the role of changing RDP port in remote desktop protection. Windows remote desktop is an inherent windows feature that allows remote access to computers either inside or outside of your computer network. You can see and access all of the programs and files on the remote computer and do what you would normally do in a normal desktop computer. This feature has been used for accessing computer terminals that don’t have a monitor or keyboard attached to them at all times e.g. servers in the server room, computers that don’t have a user attending to them, or just someone else’ client for tech support. Remote Client Protection is a real worry for IT departments all around, because windows remote desktop connection has been identified to have some exploits that makes hackers eager to set them as a major point for attacking.
Windows remote desktop has been around since windows NT 4.0 and because of it’s old history it’s security risks have been identified by security experts and hackers alike. There have been some that have been fixed by Microsoft but there are some inherent features of RDP that make hacking them easy. One of them is the remote desktop default port.
Microsoft uses a default port number for it’s remote desktop protocol. Like many other applications that have this vulnerability a default port number can be a major focal point for attackers if not protected by third party software like firewalls. The default port number Microsoft uses for Remote Desktop Protocol are UDP port 3389 and TCP port 3389. The major problem here is that if a hacker knows that you are using this default port for connecting to the remote host, they will be able to start attacking this port. There are two kind of attacks that are the major threat here:
Distributed denial of service or D.D.o.S. in short, is a hacking method that uses the default port for it’s security breach. First a hacker has to find out your host’s IP address, the he proceeds to test out which ports are open to accept connections from outside, and after finding a suitable port, the hacker starts to give out requests that will be denied by the host but nonetheless will use up the bandwidth and processing power of the remote host. This will be amplified by the Distribution of attacks to many computers, and that works by the hacker creating many different requests from different sources to the same destination. If there are enough requests sent from these clients the remote host will eventually not be able to keep up with these requests, and the bandwidth will clog up. And that will result in the remote host being unresponsive and it will be rendered out of service, hence the name Denial of Service Attack.
Brute Force Attacks are a method of hacking the client and finding out the user name and password of the remote client. Brute Force uses a method called the dictionary attack. It uses a file of predetermined usernames and passwords and starts to try each of these username passwords one by one. Until it find the username and password that fits the client. Brute Force attacks can be deadly because they give the hacker full control of the client and also access to the network the client is trying to reach. You can read more on brute force attacks here.
As we’ve discovered the default port is accessible to everyone and if a hacker finds out the client’s IP address, the first thing they try is to see if the RDP port is accessible through it’s default number. This is why changing the Default RDP port can be so crucial to Remote Desktop Security. By changing the default port you provide these benefits to remote desktop security:
This feature allows you to change the default port of RDP to increase remote desktop protection. It takes a lot of time to find and change this port number manually, so this neat little section allows for doing so fast and with no problems.
This feature allows you to set a dynamic range of ports so the port number can be cycled between the selected range. This feature selects a port number from the range you provide and sets it as the remote desktop protocol port in windows. It automatically changes the port after each time the client shuts down.
Your remote desktop clients might be working around the clock. And you might want to add an extra level of security by changing the port every few hours. This feature will change the port number in each selected time span from 1 to 24 hours and this will secure your clients even more.
The Port changer comes with some other features like showing you the ports that are in use so you don’t select them by mistake. Sunfirewall also has other features that insure your remote client’s security. You can try Sunfirewall for free and give this features a try yourself. But Sunfirewall is not limited to this features only it offers Brute Force Attack Protection, Diagrams and Suspicious User Detection.
