You may find it
hard to believe but I am just about old enough to remember a time when you
switched off your office PC at the end of the day and that was it. If you
wanted to finish off that all important presentation you could take a laptop
home, but there would be no network access. So, you hurriedly copy and pasted
everything on to the desktop on a Friday afternoon. Sound familiar?
Today, thanks to
great technology such as Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Services and of course many
others, we can all get (and indeed expect) access to our desktop resources
whether in a coffee shop, airport lounge, train or a customer site. Logging on in this way is now second
nature. It means we are free from the
shackles of the office-bound desktop and arguably a lot more productive.
But, for many
organisations this freedom comes at a price and that is compromised security.
Does the benefit outweigh the risk? I am not so sure, as you are only as strong
as your weakest link. Being able to offer remote desktop access from a
technical perspective is relatively simple and low cost (again thanks to the
likes of Microsoft), but securing it adequately and effectively has
traditionally been expensive and prohibitive.
I am of course talking about two-factor authentication (2FA).
As 2FA isn’t
built-in to Microsoft Remote Desktop Services the only option for organisations
conscious of securely protecting their desktop PCs and the network upon which
they reside, from data breaches and cyber threats has been to invest in a
separate solution. But, traditionally 2FA has been the preserve of key-ring
token providers, which require a large (the numbers can be quite frightening)
up-front investment and demand a lot of administrative resource. There is often
a lot of resistance from those who will be using the token and unless you have
a huge remote workforce, the numbers simply don’t stack up to make it a viable
proposition.
Add in to the
mix regulatory compliance policies for some sectors that demand 2FA is used.
You have one camp that is forced to make the painful investment, or the other
that simply cannot justify or afford it and must enforce a blanket ban on
remote access. Of course, there will be a few ill-advised cases that chose to
risk it.
For those not
needing to adhere to regulation, the majority settle for the default username
and password combination that Microsoft Remote Desktop Services offers. However, with advances in technology, most
notably the ability to place soft-tokens on to mobile devices, the costs have
plummeted and it is easier than ever to manage.
From today,
organisations using Microsoft Remote Desktop can strengthen with 2FA by
augmenting the username and password screen with the need to enter a unique one
time passcode.
Using the new
Winfrasoft Remote Desktop Agent, all the user needs to do is download the
PINgrid app on to their phone. From this point when logging in they simply open
the app and enter the digits that appear in their PINgrid pattern. It is also great news for the IT team as
there is no need for any code changes, making it very quick and easy-to-deploy,
whether you are an SME, or a large multi-national enterprise.
The Remote
Desktop Agent makes strong 2FA affordable for all. So, those who need to comply
with regulation but could not afford to do so, now can. Organisations of all
shapes and sizes that want to secure their desktop access with 2FA have the
option to do so. And, those that have had their hands tied and are using
expensive hard-tokens now have a viable alternative to consider when their next
license renewal is due.
For more information about Winfrasoft
Remote Desktop Agent contact a member of our team on Tel: +44
(0)118 336 8330, or Email: sales@winfrasoft.com
Author: Steven Hope, CEO, Winfrasoft