In Corona times, researchers have registered a significant increase in attacks on remote connections. The good news is, you can protect yourself by following the right security tips.

Since the corona disease forced millions of people to work from home, many have been accessing computers in companies via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). The use of the remote access protocol is increasingly attracting attackers – and not too narrowly, as a current study shows.

Eset security researchers have documented that there were around 3 million attempted attacks on RDP connections per day in Germany in June. Before Corona, the number was 260,000. In their report they complain that many companies do not take the risks seriously. Remote connections are often inadequately secured.

If an attack is successful, attackers could, for example, record internal information or view access data in order to spread even further in company networks.

Not adequately secured

Only 29 percent of the companies use two-factor authentication (2FA) as an extended access restriction. If this procedure is used, employees have to enter a second code to log in in addition to the password. This increases security and denies access to attackers who “only” have the password. Only 44 percent rely on encrypted VPN connections.

Jürgen Schmidt, head of heise Security, warned of the increasing attacks on RDP, while more and more employees in the home office are dependent on such technologies, in the webinar “IT security – current knowledge for protection in a crisis”.

In his own four-part series of articles, he explains the basics of the protocol, special attack techniques and how to properly secure RDP. He prepares all of this in “Home office and administration via remote desktop – admins should know that”. The webinars are available individually as a recording or as an inexpensive bundle.