July 2022

Using Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) to manage your network through a crisis? Make sure that you are limiting your risk by leveraging good practices, authentication tools, and the existing knowledge base. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed enterprises around the world to send their people home and leverage any tools possible to continue operations remotely. This included RDP technology that has since then seen increasing abuse.

Numerous instances have emerged of attackers finding ways to exploit poorly configured settings or weak passwords to gain access to company networks. Once inside, attackers have an open door to do almost anything, including the theft of intellectual property or other sensitive information as well as encrypting it for ransom.

Dive into the revised edition of ESET’s white paper RDP: Configuring Security For A Remote, But Not Distant Future, which was updated approximately two years after initial publication in April 2020. Since then, business has changed dramatically, with work from home becoming the new norm in many industries and offices, including many wherein work has always been performed on-premises. In this revised paper, the author offers an update on how attacks progressed throughout 2020 and 2021 using RDP.