RDP versus VPN

[ebthor]

I need some opinions to weigh in on the security of RDP vs. VPN. I
setup port forwarding on the router to forward to the file server for
remote administration--I do this for most of my customers. I am told
that it would be more secure to have a VPN router because then no ports
are open and directing to a computer. Is this, in fact, more secure?
Also, then, it I enabled a VPN on that server and had a non-VPN router
with a VPN port open to that server, is that just as insecure as having
RDP point to that server?

 

[Peter]

I need some opinions to weigh in on the security of RDP vs. VPN. I

setup port forwarding on the router to forward to the file server for
remote administration--I do this for most of my customers. I am told
that it would be more secure to have a VPN router because then no ports
are open and directing to a computer. Is this, in fact, more secure?
Also, then, it I enabled a VPN on that server and had a non-VPN router
with a VPN port open to that server, is that just as insecure as having
RDP point to that server?

I think that Remote Desktop Connection with customized port (non-default)
would be more secure than using VPN on that server.
Of course you need to harden your router and server in both cases. Also some
routers are more secure/stable than others. With VPN you get much more
flexibility though. And having a VPN router is a good idea.

 

[Chris Priede]

Hi,

I need some opinions to weigh in on the security of
RDP vs. VPN. I setup port forwarding on the router
to forward to the file server for remote administration--
I do this for most of my customers. I am told that it
would be more secure to have a VPN router because
then no ports are open and directing to a computer.
Is this, in fact, more secure?

Yes, but not as much for the reason given as for having two levels of
authentication (you'd first authenticate to the router somehow, then have to
log on to the server via RDP).

In addition to that, RDP encryption has known flaws, although they are minor
and decrypting intercepted traffic from your RDP session would still be far
from trivial.