Remote desktop to you home computer from a public location

How safe would it be to connect to my home computer let's say from a library or a coffee shop? I'm having a hard time to concentrate at home and I would like to get out and just study from a different location. I have VMware set up on my desktop(XP) and I would be connecting from Vista.

Thanks,

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Comments

undomiel

Make sure you're working on a secure connection. I ssh home from work all of the time and tunnel vnc through that. Just make sure you aren't exposing your rdp or vnc to the world.

Daniel333

I do it all the time with Hamachi.

bogdan5

Any good websites you guys can suggest that I can look at?

Daniel333

http://www.logmein.com/

bogdan5

Nice, I'm have to wait till I get home. Logmein.com is blocked at my work.

undomiel

This gives a good overview for setting up ssh tunneling under windows:
http://members.shaw.ca/nicholas.fong/vnc/

royal

Daniel333 wrote:

http://www.logmein.com/

I use Logmein as well and love it.

HeroPsycho

Exposing RDP to the world is not that bad. From a DoS vulnerability perspective, the last known vulnerability for that was years ago; honestly, tunneling RDP through SSH might leave you more vulnerable for DoS's as SSH vulnerabilities are found actually more often. RDP is encrypted, but the main weakness of RDP is unless you configure the host to use a cert, which I believe is only supported in server versions of Windows, you don't actually know what you're connecting to, and is therefore susceptible to man in the middle attacks.

I do have it "open to the world" via Windows Home Server. However, the MITM vulnerability is effectively solved since accessing WHS is an SSL connection, so the chances of MITM when initiating what is effectively Remote Desktop for Workgroups is pretty small small.

RTmarc

HeroPsycho wrote:

Exposing RDP to the world is not that bad. From a DoS vulnerability perspective, the last known vulnerability for that was years ago; honestly, tunneling RDP through SSH might leave you more vulnerable for DoS's as SSH vulnerabilities are found actually more often. RDP is encrypted, but the main weakness of RDP is unless you configure the host to use a cert, which I believe is only supported in server versions of Windows, you don't actually know what you're connecting to, and is therefore susceptible to man in the middle attacks.

I do have it "open to the world" via Windows Home Server. However, the MITM vulnerability is effectively solved since accessing WHS is an SSL connection, so the chances of MITM when initiating what is effectively Remote Desktop for Workgroups is pretty small small.

I'm in a similar situation. I RDP in from home and work.

bogdan5

I'm going to use www.logmein.com for now and see how I like it.

Thanks guys for all your input.

dynamik

I believe there was some flaw in the XP/2003 version of RDP, but I think it's been remedied in Vista/2008. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? I don't feel like doing any research tonight

Also, are you using your computer over wifi or a public computer? I'd be much more concerned if I was on their equipment. All the encryption in the world won't do you a bit of good if they're using a software or hardware (connects between the keyboard and PC) key logger.

Lots of other good suggestions. Also, you can change your RDP port in the registry. I do this for all my machines. It won't stop someone determined to find it, but it will allow you to miss people scanning IPs for that port.

unclejohnny

I've been using logmein for about a year, and I love it. I set it up on my mother's computer so I can log in from my house to fix silly things she messes up on her PC. I log into my home computer all the time from work.

bogdan5

I'll be using my laptop with vista on it. It's a fresh reinstall since dell or myself could not figure out why out of no where I didn't have sound.

Sie

I used Log me in before myself with no problems, see what you think.

Im thinking of putting an iLo card in server at home so it can stay off until I need it and boot it up to increase security, and to be a geek

johnclick

bogdan5 — I relate to your concern: In my business, I deal with very sensitive information, so after some research, I've gone with RHUB's very secure service.

Bokeh

Again? Another reply to a five yr old post?

Snow.bros

He/she is time traveling that's for sure.

Crikey

1.21 Gigawatts!

petedude

I'm actually glad this topic resurfaced again. I've been toying with various access methods for my home resources, but the RDP discussion here has me leaning that direction.

krjay

People will complain if you create a topic that's been discussed before, and mock you when you necro an old thread.. Just can't win, can you johnclick?

sratakhin

Petedude, try RD Gateway. It's kind of pain to set up to it works much better than anything else I tried. I can now RDP to my work computer and different servers from anywhere and all traffic is encrypted with HTTPS.

N2IT

sratakhin - do you know of any good sites to explain this a little bit more?

sratakhin

Technet

Step 2: Installing RD Gateway

The set up is a little different in Server 2012 but it follows the same steps.