Page 9 - AeM_September_2020

RESEARCH
ANALYSIS
TRENDS

List of Asian countries most at risk of

RDP brute-force attacks

The number of people working from home has risen Slightly below Armenia is South Korea, 48.83% of
astronomically this year due to Covid-19. network attacks are RDP brute-force attacks, placing
them as the third most likely to experience RDP brute-
Consequently, numerous companies have been reliant force attacks in Asia.
on remote desktop connections to enable their
employees to access their work computer from home. When it comes to the major economic powerhouses of
Asia, this is how they fare with the risk of RDP brute-
One of the most popular applications for accessing force attacks: Japan (38.66%), Pakistan (18.58%),
Windows workstations and servers is Microsoft’s India (18.02%), Russia (14.10%), Israel (13.47%),
remote desktop protocol (RDP), which cyber criminals Turkey (9.47%), China (3.87%) and Saudi Arabia
have viewed as the perfect opportunity to exploit. (2.67%).

To gain access to valuable corporate resources such Alternatively, Myanmar (0.95%), Yemen (1.51%) and
as confidential emails and data, cyber criminals can Laos (1.58%) are among the Asian countries where
deploy brute-force attacks, which attempt to find a valid RDP brute-force attacks are significantly lower, placing
RDP username and password pair by systematically them at the bottom of the list. (Source: Reboot)
checking all possible combinations until the right one is
discovered. In addition, Reboot Online provides advice on how to
prevent RDP brute-force attacks:
Interested in the prevalence of RDP brute-force
attacks, Reboot Online analyzed the latest data from • Have strong usernames and passwords: a basic
anti-virus specialists Kaspersky to discover which Asian and easy form of defense against RDP brute-force
countries are most at risk. attacks is having a strong password. A password
which is long and contains a combination of upper-
Reboot Online found that Georgia is the biggest and-lower case letters, numbers and special
victim of RDP brute-force attacks in Asia, with majority characters is recommended. Additionally, avoid
of network attacks attributed to RDP brute-force attacks basic account names such as ‘administrator’ as
(60.76%).Armenia is in second position, as 50.11% usernames, and instead use something more
of network attacks in the country are RDP brute-force cryptic.
attacks leaving Microsoft users at high risk.

9 September 2020: Cybersecurity & Data Safety: perpetual awareness and innovation presupposed