Outbound RDP access

cancel
Showing results for 
Show  only  | Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
Announcements
Please sign in to see details of an important advisory in our Customer Advisories area.

Outbound RDP access

L1 Bithead

I just heard one of my coworkers saying we need to block outbound access to RDP, I didn't have chance to follow up with him what him because of COVID-19.  I am trying to to understand what would be the reason, is that a best practice possibly?

 

 

1 accepted solution

Accepted Solutions

@Amin2,

That solely depends on your use case and if its something that you wish to allow. In secure environments (think Banking, Hospitals, and other regulated industries) you would absolutely block ms-rdp connects to your untrust interface. The risk in allowing RDP connections to external resources comes more in data retention and access rather than it being inheritably insecure. It's an easy way at that point for data to be exfiled from your network either for malicious purposes or by a well-meaning technically savvy user. In these type of environments though, it's absolutely something you wouldn't want to allow. 

 

In a more office centric environment where you don't have any regulatory compliance reasons to limit this access and didn't have a strong business need to secure data, then this is more of a policy decision. I would argue that your employees probably have no need to ever access any outside resources via RDP, and that it can safely be closed and requests to open access can be evaluated for business need on a case-by-case basis. 

Essentially, unless you have a business need for this to be open to the outside work you provide a chance for data exfiltration that likely doesn't have a valid reason to be allowed. 

View solution in original post

4 REPLIES 4

Cyber Elite
Cyber Elite

RDP is a remote desktop protocol designed for internal use. It is uncommon for it to be run over the internet instead of more secure/flexible solutions (vpn, TeamViewer,...).

It's not as dynamic as the alternatives, so it is more likely a user connecting back to their home computer than a legitimate use by a contractor for example

 

 

 

Tom Piens
PANgurus - Strata specialist; config reviews, policy optimization

So from your response, we should block RDP outbound probably using App-ID, would that be accurate?

@Amin2,

That solely depends on your use case and if its something that you wish to allow. In secure environments (think Banking, Hospitals, and other regulated industries) you would absolutely block ms-rdp connects to your untrust interface. The risk in allowing RDP connections to external resources comes more in data retention and access rather than it being inheritably insecure. It's an easy way at that point for data to be exfiled from your network either for malicious purposes or by a well-meaning technically savvy user. In these type of environments though, it's absolutely something you wouldn't want to allow. 

 

In a more office centric environment where you don't have any regulatory compliance reasons to limit this access and didn't have a strong business need to secure data, then this is more of a policy decision. I would argue that your employees probably have no need to ever access any outside resources via RDP, and that it can safely be closed and requests to open access can be evaluated for business need on a case-by-case basis. 

Essentially, unless you have a business need for this to be open to the outside work you provide a chance for data exfiltration that likely doesn't have a valid reason to be allowed. 

Thank you very much for the explanation.  I understood blocking inbound rdp connection but just didn't quite understand about outbound connection until your explanation, that cleared it up for me.

 

Best Regards

-Amin

  • 1 accepted solution
  • 4514 Views
  • 4 replies
  • 0 Likes
Like what you see?

Show your appreciation!

Click Like if a post is helpful to you or if you just want to show your support.

Click Accept as Solution to acknowledge that the answer to your question has been provided.

The button appears next to the replies on topics you’ve started. The member who gave the solution and all future visitors to this topic will appreciate it!

These simple actions take just seconds of your time, but go a long way in showing appreciation for community members and the LIVEcommunity as a whole!

The LIVEcommunity thanks you for your participation!