The sudden explosion of employees working from home (WFH) during the pandemic has increased the risk of cyberattacks. Among the factors contributing to that increased risk: people may use their own less secure personal devices which may also be shared with other members of their household, and they may need to be connecting to the office via Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP). RDP has always been a concern and the government has warned entities numerous times over the past few years over the need to disable RDP when it is not in use, but have all employees first working from home and using RDP ever even seen those warnings, and have their employers now sent out new and urgent security protocols for WFH employees to follow?
Danny Palmer reports that an analysis by McAfee researchers found that whereas there were about three million RDP ports facing the open internet in January, that number rose to more than four and half million in March.
Researchers warn that finding the public-facing ports is as simple as using Shodan, the search engine that allows users to look for Internet of Things and other connected devices.
Read more on ZDNet about how criminals can attack via RDP and what WFH employees can do to secure RDP.