Is remote desktop secure?

Cheetah Designs · 22 Aug 2011 at 11:13

I need to remote desktop into my university so I can buy a macbook.

Is the connection between me and the university encrypted and safe to enter details in?

Donkeyfumbler · 22 Aug 2011 at 11:18

Which version of RD are you using? What OS is your machine and what OS is the server or PC you are connecting to?

Cheetah Designs · 22 Aug 2011 at 11:23

No idea which version of RD.

My OS in Windows 7, the server is Windows 2008

mrk · 22 Aug 2011 at 11:29

Win7/Server 2008 allow the use of NTLM authentication which secures the connection nicely.

Donkeyfumbler · 22 Aug 2011 at 14:14

Should be fine - the more recent the OS, the more secure version of RDP you are going to be using. By default it should use TLS (transport layer security) so highly unlikely anyone could intercept and decrypt the traffic.

Terrier_Jimlad · 22 Aug 2011 at 23:13

Your university allows you to RDP in to their network from outside? That's pretty brave of them

clv101 · 22 Aug 2011 at 23:17

Terrier_Jimlad said:
Your university allows you to RDP in to their network from outside? That's pretty brave of them

Don't all universities? A university where you can't connect to your machines/data on campus from anywhere in the world can't be much of a research institution.

m4cc45 · 23 Aug 2011 at 07:30

clv101 said:
Don't all universities? A university where you can't connect to your machines/data on campus from anywhere in the world can't be much of a research institution.

Most would secure it via a VPN client link then allowing you, once authenticated, to access the internal resources (i.e. remote desktop).

I would never allow remote desktop from the outside World on to a network without some kind of VPN connection whereby you can disable accounts, etc. it's very high risk.

M.

Terrier_Jimlad · 23 Aug 2011 at 10:10

clv101 said:
Don't all universities? A university where you can't connect to your machines/data on campus from anywhere in the world can't be much of a research institution.

Only where the IT guys in charge are a set of morons. As mentioned above, it would need passing through a secure VPN tunnel of some kind. No one in the right mind would allow direct RDP from the outside world

clv101 · 23 Aug 2011 at 10:44

For sure, I doubt anyone uses RDP without encryption. For example, here's the setup at Bristol, they use SSH: http://www.bris.ac.uk/it-services/advice/homeusers/remote/remotecontrol.html

Same at Cambridge: http://www-h.eng.cam.ac.uk/help/network/offsiteaccess/advanced/rdpfwd/

whitecrook · 23 Aug 2011 at 10:46

You can access the mac store for your uni outside the education network if you know the right link.

Terrier_Jimlad · 23 Aug 2011 at 13:22

whitecrook said:
You can access the mac store for your uni outside the education network if you know the right link.

share the wealth?

whitecrook · 23 Aug 2011 at 15:53

what uni?

Terrier_Jimlad · 23 Aug 2011 at 22:56

Huddersfield (hud.ac.uk)

Randomface74 · 23 Aug 2011 at 22:58

you'll want to keep that quiet if you value your data tbh

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Aug 2011 at 09:37

Terrier_Jimlad said:
share the wealth?

I know the links but not giving you them here as it's not allowed.

Terrier_Jimlad said:
Huddersfield (hud.ac.uk)

shhhh

whitecrook · 24 Aug 2011 at 09:51

oh right. OK guess you'll have to google then

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Aug 2011 at 10:23

@Terrier_Jimlad I will give you a clue, my signature.

FARGO · 24 Aug 2011 at 15:47

iDroid84 said:
@Terrier_Jimlad I will give you a clue, my signature.

Very well written - I shall read more of your blog when I get time

Deleted member 77746 · 24 Aug 2011 at 16:05

FARGO said:
Very well written - I shall read more of your blog when I get time

When I find out more I will expand on my findings.