Citrix, VPN, Remote Desktop and Wireless security

Citrix, VPN, Remote Desktop and Wireless security

Secure Home | Search | About
 Microsoft Applications Security    Post an article   get this group's latest topics as an RSS feed add this group's latest topics to your My MSN content add this group's latest topics to your My Yahoo content add this group's latest topics to your Google content
Subject Author Date
Citrix, VPN, Remote Desktop and Wireless security matthew.beckwith 11-18-2005
Posted by on November 18, 2005, 4:05 pm
If you were  Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
I'm going to be opening a doctor's office, with a computer system run
off a server in the office. I'd like to be able to access the system
remotely when I'm sitting at home, or even in a coffee shop through
their wireless network.

I have 2 questions:

1) How do I best set up the access itself? I have been advised that
the Windows remote desktop is the most economical approach to be able
to get into my system, but I'm concerned that it might be slow. I've
been advised to try GoToMyPC as well, but this would probably be slower
than I'd like. Currently, I access the computer where I work using VPN
and Citrix (they're both involved, but I don't understand which does
what, or even what they are really). I was told that this would cost
me about $5000 in my new practice, which might be more than I'd want to
spend.

2) Is it possible to have security when sitting in a public place using
an unsecured network? It seems to me that such a thing is possible if
the system encrypts at the server and decrypts at my laptop and vice
versa. That way anybody capturing my transmissions on the unsecured
wireless network would just get encoded data. Does such a thing exist?

Thanks for any help you can provide. --Matt


Posted by Steven L Umbach on November 18, 2005, 7:06 pm
If you were  Registered and logged in, you could reply and use other advanced thread options
VPN using l2tp is the most secure option. RDP is very secure and by default
XP/Windows 2000/2003 use strong encryption for the entire RDP session and if
you are connecting to a Windows 2003 server with SP1 you can use RDP over
SSL as described in the link below to further secure RDP. The reason I like
l2tp so much is because both computer and user authentication are required
in l2tp via a computer certificate installed on both the VPN server and VPN
client and ipsec is used for encryption. With RDP anyone that can guess your
password can connect to your RDP server. L2tp has problems with NAT however
and a Windows 2003 VPN server can work with NAT-T. --- Steve

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/windowsserver2003/library/BookofSP1/2284b19b-30a6-42b5-9bd1-ff301f7248b0.mspx

> I'm going to be opening a doctor's office, with a computer system run
> off a server in the office. I'd like to be able to access the system
> remotely when I'm sitting at home, or even in a coffee shop through
> their wireless network.
>
> I have 2 questions:
>
> 1) How do I best set up the access itself? I have been advised that
> the Windows remote desktop is the most economical approach to be able
> to get into my system, but I'm concerned that it might be slow. I've
> been advised to try GoToMyPC as well, but this would probably be slower
> than I'd like. Currently, I access the computer where I work using VPN
> and Citrix (they're both involved, but I don't understand which does
> what, or even what they are really). I was told that this would cost
> me about $5000 in my new practice, which might be more than I'd want to
> spend.
>
> 2) Is it possible to have security when sitting in a public place using
> an unsecured network? It seems to me that such a thing is possible if
> the system encrypts at the server and decrypts at my laptop and vice
> versa. That way anybody capturing my transmissions on the unsecured
> wireless network would just get encoded data. Does such a thing exist?
>
> Thanks for any help you can provide. --Matt
>



Similar ThreadsPosted
remote desktop web June 2, 2006, 1:37 pm
SSL and Remote Desktop March 11, 2008, 12:11 pm
How to 'Harden' Remote Desktop November 11, 2005, 4:05 pm
Remote Desktop Connection June 13, 2005, 3:56 pm
Remote Desktop over VPN connection April 6, 2006, 4:42 pm
Remote Desktop Connection June 21, 2007, 11:32 pm
Remote Desktop on 2003 Domain August 18, 2005, 1:43 pm
Remote Desktop works but Assistance does not June 13, 2006, 12:37 pm
Remote Desktop and Terminal Services July 12, 2006, 7:12 pm
Remote Desktop Port Question April 9, 2007, 3:35 pm

The site map in XML format XML site map

Contact Us | Privacy Policy