PC Anywhere Substitute

  • Thread starter Thread starter j. galloway
  • Start date Start date
J

j. galloway

Hello All,

I recently read an article called "Use Your Web Browser
to Connect to a Remote Desktop". I thought I could use it
as a free alternative to a "go to my pc" style product.
The article was very complex and hard for me to
understand so I posted more questions ("XP Pro to
Server" / Feb 8th). I'm sure now that I didn't ask enough
questions or state my goal clearly.
I was answered ( i'm sure, correctly) by 2 nice
gentlemen in a way that sounded very scary and full of
possible security vulnerabilities. I decided it wasn't
worth it given my computer skills.
I just found another article that made much more sense
to me and I was able to set it up without much effort and
it works great so far. I just don't know how vulnerable I
am now.
If someone has time to read the article and post to let
me know what security holes I may have opened, I would
really appreciate it. I followed the directions to the
letter and was able to connect to my XP Pro box, using
the internet, from a W2K box on my home network. I have
not tried it from an off-site machine yet but have no
reason to believe it won't work there also.

The article address is:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert
/northrup_03may16.mspx

I run an XP Pro box, on a cable modem, behind a D-link
DI-614+ router, with McAfee Enterprise Virus Scan, and
Windows ICF enabled.

Any and all input (except for how dumb I may be for
realizing, or finding the obvious) is welcomed.

Thanks for your time,

j. galloway
 
j. galloway said:
Hello All,

I recently read an article called "Use Your Web Browser
to Connect to a Remote Desktop". I thought I could use it
as a free alternative to a "go to my pc" style product.
The article was very complex and hard for me to
understand so I posted more questions ("XP Pro to
Server" / Feb 8th). I'm sure now that I didn't ask enough
questions or state my goal clearly.
I was answered ( i'm sure, correctly) by 2 nice
gentlemen in a way that sounded very scary and full of
possible security vulnerabilities. I decided it wasn't
worth it given my computer skills.
I just found another article that made much more sense
to me and I was able to set it up without much effort and
it works great so far. I just don't know how vulnerable I
am now.
If someone has time to read the article and post to let
me know what security holes I may have opened, I would
really appreciate it. I followed the directions to the
letter and was able to connect to my XP Pro box, using
the internet, from a W2K box on my home network. I have
not tried it from an off-site machine yet but have no
reason to believe it won't work there also.

The article address is:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/networking/expert
/northrup_03may16.mspx

I run an XP Pro box, on a cable modem, behind a D-link
DI-614+ router, with McAfee Enterprise Virus Scan, and
Windows ICF enabled.

Any and all input (except for how dumb I may be for
realizing, or finding the obvious) is welcomed.
Click to expand...

The article has a few links to information about securing Internet Information Server. Please be aware that IIS is a web-server that has been on the market for a long time and has many vulnerabilities if not properly configured and kept up to date.

I encourage you to read those security bulletins and make double sure you visited Windows Update after installing IIS.

Assuming you have opened the appropriate ports on your router, everything should work as desired. However, keep in mind that in this state, your system is only as secure as the passwords to all user accounts on the system. I use Remote Desktop here and my shortest password is 19 characters long.

Good Luck,

carl
 
On Wed, 09 Feb 2005 11:15:05 -0800, j. galloway wrote:
[snip]
I run an XP Pro box, on a cable modem, behind a D-link
DI-614+ router, with McAfee Enterprise Virus Scan, and
Windows ICF enabled.

Any and all input (except for how dumb I may be for
realizing, or finding the obvious) is welcomed.
Click to expand...

If you want remote access to your home computer, and you don't have a
corporate firewall to deal with, then try VNC or TightVNC. VNC is free and
works great on Windows and Linux. There are a couple things to do that
make it a little safer - make sure that your computer requires a password
to logon and that the screen saver is set and requires a password to exit
it, install VNC with a BIG password (12+ characters,
upper/lower/num/alpha), change the default port it listens on to something
high (anything not normally used) so that just finding the open port
doesn't directly mean that you're running VNC, make sure the VNC password
is NOT the same as the computers password.
 
Thank you,
I will double-read all the links. I am currently all
updated (incl. today's) and will change to auto-update. I
will also switch my passwords to at the very
least "strong"

Thanks,
jeff
 
Thank you for the suggestions, I am behind a corporate
firewall. I will research the VNC for knowledge though.

j. galloway
 
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