Who has RDP?
There’s been a lot of talk in recent months about RDP being the favorite attack vector for cybercriminals. This raises a lot of concern, especially if you aren’t sure what RDP means. It’s likely that if you aren’t familiar with RDP, it’s not something you have to worry about.
RDP means remote desktop protocol. We get a lot of questions from home users on what it is and how to close ports. If you’re running Windows 10 home, that’s not a concern for you. Microsoft didn’t include RDP features in the Windows 10 home edition. If you really want the option to use RDP from a Windows 10 home device, a quick internet search will give you options. For now, however, let’s agree that you shouldn’t enable it unless you genuinely need it.
Tell me about it
RDP is used to, as the name suggests, remote into a machine when you aren’t in the same room physically. Businesses will use this feature for remote workers, tech support, project management, and a host of other applications. Setting it up requires some configurations in your machine and router. You can check out a great article from Geek.com for those specifics.
After setting up RDP capabilities, your machine is ready to allow remote access, whether that’s solely from you or from authorized users you allow to access your machine. You should always know who is accessing your files.
But what if I don’t
This is where PC Matic saw a need and, pardon the pun, plugged it. By using an RDP control like PC Matic’s RDP Lifeline feature, we’ve allowed our customers the freedom to secure, monitor, and even hit the kill switch on active RDP sessions. True to the nature of RDP itself, you don’t have to be in front of your machine to access these features. We’ll keep you in-the-know with real time alerts and features to keep your ports safe.
RDP is a great feature and something that’s made doing business way easier than it was even 10 years ago. Like everything else, however, it requires vigilance, maintenance, and a little bit of common sense. Keep it secure, and you’ll enjoy the convenience of RDP. As always, stay safe out there.
