RDP Brute-Force Protection Configuration
Protection Overview
RdpGuard detects and blocks dictionary-based
brute-force attacks against RDP Server. It works with all RDP Security layers: RDP Security Layer,
Negotiate, SSL (TLS)
To enable and configure RDP protection
1. Start RdpGuard Dashboard and click on the link next to RDP
RDP Protection Link in RdpGuard Dashboard
RDP Settings dialog will open:
RDP Detection Engine Settings
2. Select traffic monitoring method:
As you probably know, Windows 2008 (and 2008 R2) do not write attacker's IP address to Security event log when RDP connections is made via TLS/SSL.
To work-around this issue, RdpGuard uses alternate, traffic-based approaches to detect incoming RDP connections
when TLS or Negotiate security layer is selected for RDP encryption.
These approaches are:
-
Raw Sockets
- Does not work on Windows Server 2008 or with firewalls.
-
WinPcap
- Works on all Windows Editions, WinPcap must be installed.
Monitoring via Raw Sockets
This monitoring method works on Windows Server 2008 R2 only if there are no 3-rd party firewalls
or anti-viruses installed. It works out of the box and doesn't require any addional software.
Addresses to monitor
When Monitoring via Raw Sockets is enabled, RdpGuard listens on RDP port for an each IP address associated with the machine.
This may affect server performance if there are high number of IP addresses associated with the machine.
In order to avoid performance decrease, you may consider limiting the number of IP addresses available for RDP connection:
- Open the Windows Firewall MMC (wf.msc)
- Select the Inbound Rules section
- Get the properties of the Remote Desktop (TCP-In) rule
- On the Scope tab, choose the option to select specific IP's in the "Local IP Address" section
- Add the IP address that you want to allow RDP connections to connect to
When you done with the firewall configuration, you may update addresses to monitor in RdpGuard.
Monitoring via WinPcap
This monitoring method works on all Windows Server 2008 editions but requires additional software installation.
You need to download and install WinPcap.
3. Specify one or multiple RDP ports to monitor (you may skip this step if you are using RDP on a single port)
4. Click Save to save changes and restart RdpGuard service.
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