- #WINDOWS TERMINAL SERVICES SERVER SSL VS TLS HOW TO#
- #WINDOWS TERMINAL SERVICES SERVER SSL VS TLS PC#
- #WINDOWS TERMINAL SERVICES SERVER SSL VS TLS WINDOWS#
#WINDOWS TERMINAL SERVICES SERVER SSL VS TLS WINDOWS#
Like with the previous option this can only be set in the GUI locally on Windows Server 2008. Rather than adding in the whole RDS role to apply this option in the GUI you can apply it via GPO which will in turn apply to both 20 as below: Remote Desktop Services – Encryption Level High GPO Force the use of TLS 1.0 protocol as a transport layer for the serviceįorcing the use of TLS 1.0 mitigates the risks associated with SSL 3.0 protocol. Unfortunately Microsoft removed the ‘RD Session Host Configuration’ options as standard with Server 2012 R2. The Encryption level can be found on the General tab as below: Remote Desktop Services – Encryption Level ‘High’ With windows server 2008 this could be set locally through the GUI by navigating from the start menu–>Administrative Tools–>Remote Desktop Services–>Remote Desktop Session Host Configuration, then double clicking on the ‘RDP-TCP’ connection in the middle of the screen. In a domain environment the GPO is the way to go. Like with the above example we can set the Terminal Services Encryption level to High either locally on the server or via Group Policy. Setting the Encryption level to High encrypts data sent from client to server and server to clients using 128 bit encryption. Setting Terminal Services Encryption Level to High This can be applied to both Servers and workstations from Windows Vista and above. However it is far easier to set this via Group Policy and distribute to all your Servers as below: Remote Desktop Services – Network Level Authentication GPO This option is most commonly seen in the Remote Desktop settings in the system properties as below: Remote Desktop Settings – Network Level Authentication Network level authentication allows the client to authenticate earlier in the remote connection process rather than the normal process. This post will we go through how we can accomplish these tasks.
#WINDOWS TERMINAL SERVICES SERVER SSL VS TLS HOW TO#
How do we fix it…Ĭarlos Perez has written up an excellent ‘how to’ guide from start to finish on how to setup this up. Thus preventing any bad MITM rdp sessions. More importantly, through the use of Group Policy you can specify that you are not able to connect to it unless you trust it.
#WINDOWS TERMINAL SERVICES SERVER SSL VS TLS PC#
If your PC can trust the certificate that is presented by the machine you are connecting too, through the use of a bonafide signed certificate from your internal CA you would know whether or not the machine you are connecting to is genuine. The attacker can then sniff the network traffic and all sorts of other rather bad things can happen, like stealing credentials.Ī typical self signed certificate presented through RDP looks like the picture above, and clearly states the certificate is not from a trusted certificate authority. Once a MITM attack is in play and your arp cache is then poisoned you would essentially be connecting to an attackers machine. There are many ways of carrying out a MITM attack, this just one of them. This is done by flooding the network with bad ARP responses, known as ARP poising, the whole attack is known as a Man In The Middle (MITM). The play by an attacker here being that should they have exploited a vulnerability and been able to access your internal network (not for this discussion, however.), they could essentially respond to ARP request by modifying responses sent by an attackers machine. The machine that you are supposedly connecting to usually presents you with a certificate that is signed by itself, funnily enough known as a ‘self signed certificate’. The issue here being that you have no way of verifying the server or PC that you are trying to connect to via RDP. The certificate is generated and signed by an internal Active Directory Certificate Authority (CA). In this post I’m going to be following on from Part 1 located here, talking about further hardening the Windows Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) with a certificate based system. Securing Remote Desktop with Certificates from your Internal CA.