From the Field: RDP Security Features

๐Ÿ”Ž ๐—™๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐—บ ๐˜๐—ต๐—ฒ ๐—™๐—ถ๐—ฒ๐—น๐—ฑ โ€” Real-World Findings from Security Assessments

๐Ÿ’ฅ ๐Ÿฑ๐Ÿณ.๐Ÿญ%ย of infrastructures Iโ€™ve assessed ๐—ฑ๐—ผ๐—ปโ€™๐˜ ๐˜‚๐˜€๐—ฒ ๐—ฏ๐˜‚๐—ถ๐—น๐˜-๐—ถ๐—ป ๐˜€๐—ฒ๐—ฐ๐˜‚๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐˜๐˜† ๐—ณ๐—ฒ๐—ฎ๐˜๐˜‚๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐˜€ ๐—ผ๐—ณ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐—บ๐—ผ๐˜๐—ฒ ๐——๐—ฒ๐˜€๐—ธ๐˜๐—ผ๐—ฝ ๐—ฃ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐˜๐—ผ๐—ฐ๐—ผ๐—น.

๐—ฅ๐——๐—ฃ ๐—ฐ๐—ฎ๐—ป ๐—ฏ๐—ฒ ๐—ฑ๐—ฎ๐—ป๐—ด๐—ฒ๐—ฟ๐—ผ๐˜‚๐˜€: it spreads credentials, caches them in plaintext, and becomes an easy escalation path.

While switching to 3rd-party tools is one option, it adds complexity and risk. Instead, you might already have the tools you need โ€” you just need to enable them:

๐Ÿ”’ ๐—ฅ๐——๐—ฃ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐˜€๐˜๐—ฟ๐—ถ๐—ฐ๐˜๐—ฒ๐—ฑ ๐—”๐—ฑ๐—บ๐—ถ๐—ป ๐— ๐—ผ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ

Great for privileged sessions from jump servers or PAWs. It ensures no credentials are sent to the target โ€” only network logon is used. Downside? You canโ€™t access network resources from the target unless you manually auth again (because your creds arenโ€™t there โ€” thatโ€™s the point). Supports NTLM and Kerberos.

๐Ÿ›ก๏ธ ๐—ฅ๐—ฒ๐—บ๐—ผ๐˜๐—ฒ ๐—–๐—ฟ๐—ฒ๐—ฑ๐—ฒ๐—ป๐˜๐—ถ๐—ฎ๐—น ๐—š๐˜‚๐—ฎ๐—ฟ๐—ฑ

Perfect for users accessing RDP-based apps like terminal services. All auth requests are routed back to the source device, so no creds touch the target at all. It works via SSO and supports only Kerberos. Way better than default credential delegation โ€” which stores passwords in plaintext on the host. There are still some risks connected to this features, that is why you should only use this for users.

These features are really underused โ€” and can seriously reduce RDP credential risks.

Are you using them?