RE: Remote Desktop vs VPN on Windows 2003

["Roger A. Grimes" <roger () banneretcs com>]

I'm quite aware of what I did.  I didn't invite the world to hack me.  I
invited them to find my RDP port.  I often invite people to hack
me...but I didn't this time. 

Port scanning is legal in most places in this world and it occurs 1000's
of times a day to my devices whether or not I invited the members of
this list.

Yes, traffic volume went up significantly...and is beginning to die back
down.  For a few hours my whole network was sluggish when connecting to
the Internet.  I certainly expected that.  It gives my ISP something to
play with as well...to practice their skills. I even expected that
someone would just DDoS me...but I hoped that wasn't the case, and so
far, hasn't been.  But if someone wants to DDoS...they can do it with or
without my permissions, and I didn't give permission to anyone to do
anything but look for a port.

Am I bit of a maverick?  No doubt.  Am I foolish?  Probably more than
many on this list would be.  But I also skydiving and cave diving...so
it's in my blood.  What I am is also very successful at protecting my
clients.  Why? Because I don't live inside the box.  I explore and test
the boundaries all the time.  Sometimes I get bit, and most of the time
I learn something.

Every time I hear that security thru obscurity doesn't work...I just
have to speak up an quantify the statement.

I wanted to prove that moving a port to a non-default port adds
something to security...and it did.  I've now got over 140,000 port
scans...and nearly a 100 guesses now (people are still guessing even
though Rhett did it first yesterday).  Not a single guess has been right
besides his.  If I had RDP on a default port, the potential worm would
have had me on its first attempt.  Now, I've got 139,999 packets that
haven't guessed right (and this is as easy as a contest could be).

I've got my data and I will refute anyone who claims changing default
ports adds nothing to security.

Again, there will be a hack IIS 6 contest coming in a few months, but I
won't be hosting it at my business address.  

Roger

-----Original Message-----
From: Paris E. Stone [mailto:pstone () alhurra com] 
Sent: Wednesday, January 19, 2005 11:11 AM
To: Roger A. Grimes; Joe Dumass; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Remote Desktop vs VPN on Windows 2003

If you are getting that volume of traffic, I am sure your ISP is not
pleased with all the extra traffic they are having to route.

And to issue such an open "come and get me" is careless if not reckless.
You have, for all intents and purposes, eliminated any legal recourse
you could have, and any protections for yourself by issuing such a
statement.

"Well your honor, they did compromise my server, and yes, they did use
it to launch a DoS against ebay.com, but I don't think that a judgement
of 2 million dollars is appropriate simply because they were offline for
3 days."

-----Original Message-----
From: Roger A. Grimes [mailto:roger () banneretcs com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 5:35 PM
To: Joe Dumass; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Remote Desktop vs VPN on Windows 2003

If I was supposed to do it, the RFC would say NEVER do it.  But the
protocol actually has the flexibility built in. 

As long as the Internet is an unsafe place, I will move my ports around
unless I need the standardization part.  

BTW, so far 20,000 scans against my system, only 5 guesses, no one
close...nothing creative.  I'm sure I'll start to see the slow port
scans come in soon.

Roger 

-----Original Message-----
From: Joe Dumass [mailto:joe_dumass () hotmail com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 4:21 PM
To: Roger A. Grimes; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Remote Desktop vs VPN on Windows 2003



I think that the problem with arbitrarily assigning services to
non-standard ports is that it disrupts the flow of communication.  Is it
somewhat more secure against worms, etc?  Maybe... but the protocol
definition exists to define how to standardize communication for a
reason.  If our partners go out and redefine https to non-standard
ports, we would have to open new rules in our firewalls to allow
communication to them, resulting in a less secure environment than
simply allowing out-bound 443, and more of an administrative burden of
trying to remember what outbound 8888, 4422, 1192, 65213, etc are.



-----Original Message-----
From: Roger A. Grimes [mailto:roger () banneretcs com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 12:53 PM
To: Paris E. Stone; Jeff Randall; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Remote Desktop vs VPN on Windows 2003

Security through obscurity is a type of security, and it works...just
not in a vacuum...and not alone.

Almost all major Internet worms would have be rendered defenseless by
simply changing the port number one port up. 99.9% of hacks are
automated using worms, viruses, and malicious scripts.  Almost of of
them (9999.99%) only look on the default port.  Fastest worm ever..SQL
Slammer...only worked on the default SQL port. Code Red...only port 80.
Spambots look for ports 25 and 80. FTP exploits ONLY look for port 21. I
could go on and on.

Security by obscurity works, and works well. Come find my RDP port on my
domain at banneretcs.com.  Prize (free book) to the first person who
finds it. Go.

Roger

************************************************************************
***
*Roger A. Grimes, Banneret Computer Security, Computer Security
Consultant *CPA, CISSP, MCSE: Security (NT/2000/2003/MVP), CNE (3/4),
CEH, CHFI
*email: roger () banneretcs com
*cell: 757-615-3355
*Author of Malicious Mobile Code:  Virus Protection for Windows by
O'Reilly *http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/malmobcode
*Author of Honeypots for Windows (Apress)
*http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=281
************************************************************************
****



-----Original Message-----
From: Paris E. Stone [mailto:pstone () alhurra com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 18, 2005 10:40 AM
To: Roger A. Grimes; Jeff Randall; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Remote Desktop vs VPN on Windows 2003

"Security through Obscurity" i.e. put it on a different port, is not
security at all.

Rdesktop on the internet, is generally a bad idea, no matter what port
it runs on.


Put a firewall in front of it if possible, if not, run a software
firewall and then add openvpn.

www.openvpn.net is free, and will allow IPSEC connectivity that you can
use to access the machine, then you get MSTSC(remote desktop) access
over the tunnel.

-----Original Message-----
From: Roger A. Grimes [mailto:roger () banneretcs com]
Sent: Friday, January 14, 2005 5:16 PM
To: Jeff Randall; security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: RE: Remote Desktop vs VPN on Windows 2003

I can think of NO reason not to use Remote Desktop.  Remote Desktop is
fast and secure.  Everything is encrypted past the logon name. To get
additional security assurance, change the default TCP port from 3389 to
something randomly high...like 58645 (which you can do with a regedit on
the server...just google it).  Then add the new port number to your
server address...like www.example.com:58645.

Roger

************************************************************************
***
*Roger A. Grimes, Banneret Computer Security, Computer Security
Consultant *CPA, CISSP, MCSE: Security (NT/2000/2003/MVP), CNE (3/4),
CEH, CHFI
*email: roger () banneretcs com
*cell: 757-615-3355
*Author of Malicious Mobile Code:  Virus Protection for Windows by
O'Reilly *http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/malmobcode
*Author of Honeypots for Windows (Apress)
*http://www.apress.com/book/bookDisplay.html?bID=281
************************************************************************
****



-----Original Message-----
From: Jeff Randall [mailto:Jeff.Randall () ksg-llc net]
Sent: Thursday, January 13, 2005 3:23 PM
To: security-basics () securityfocus com
Subject: Remote Desktop vs VPN on Windows 2003

I have setup a web server running win2k3 and was curious about remotely
accessing it with an XP box.  Only one requirement, it has to be FREE.
=20

Here is what I have setup and as of now working but I would like in the
end to only run one.

1.      RRAS using PPTP.  It's not a DC so I use local accounts.
2.      VNC.  TiteVNC to be specific.
3.      Remote Desktop - went into the admin tools and set the
encryption level to high.

Please no crazy setups like upgrade to DC and run IAS for Radius or
running IPSEC tunnels, just would like peoples thoughts on the security
level of each of these programs and what they feel are the most secure.
If you can get specific about encryption, keys, key lengths, that would
be great.  Thanks