Secure Remote Access to Home Computer while on the road

[DaveLembke]

Was wondering if there are any suggestions on Remote Access Software that is secure?

I have used CrossLoop, Teamviewer, RealVNC, and RDP in the past to connect to my home computer remotely. Real VNC however I had a system get hacked due to password exploit many years ago where someone Black VNC hacked my one system with no password required. Real VNC has since fixed that issue, but not sure if its the best out there or not.

RealVNC and RDP worked great for remote access to the computer that was hosting the service with port forwarding configuration on router, but not sure how good those are these days to avoid people hacking the computer with those services discovered. With RDP I moved the port to an unknown port number in an attempt to make it harder to hack because a port prober who would discover the port wouldn't be able to figure it out by default port identification.

I like free solutions that are secure, but if I need to pay money to have a secure remote connection, I would go with that.

Later this year my job is going to have me on the road and while sure I can just bring my data with me, some sensitive data I don't like the idea of it travelling with me, but I would like to be able to access my computer at home and have access remotely to sensitive data that I don't want to connect directly to over a hotels potentially shady complimentary free wifi.

Was thinking of building a spare computer up clean just for this remote access to home data which would run just when I tell my wife or daughter to turn it on for remote access and it would be open to remote connections with correct authentication. I was then thinking that wife or daughter connect a USB stick to my home computer and this would have all the authentication and other sensitive data on it that I don't want to be travelling with but I need access to.

The information like passwords would be protected from a monkey in the middle packet sniffer because I would just connect to the remote computer at home and open up a text file on the USB stick that my daughter plugs into it. I then copy/paste remotely the information into the browser at the home computer of which none of this information should be passing from the clipboard buffer to the laptop at the hotel but it could be pasted into the websites that I need to have access to in order to properly authenticate and check on things and pay bills etc. Then when I am done I simply tell the computer at home to shutdown. This will clear the clipboard cache from the last saved piece of information that was copy/pasted.

Instead of just putting this computer out there ready for a connection with Real VNC I figured I'd check to see what suggestions people have for the best remote access software that is out there to connect to a computer and not likely to get hacked easily.

Additionally screen capture data between myself in a hotel and home I wouldn't want anyone being able to see the content of my accounting stuff while away and so I am being really careful with this vs assuming I have a good method of doing this.

[patio]

Since it is work related eventually and sensitive what do your IT people have for suggestions ? ?

[BC_Programmer]

Set up an IPSec VPN. I haven't set one up myself but this Might be helpful.

The reason you want this is because connecting via a VPN means you can access services restricted to LAN without actually connecting from your Home LAN, and without opening those services to the Internet- eg no port forwarding. By way of example, my work uses it for our Servers- I have to connect to our VPN which includes a pre-shared key as well my standard username/password, once that is established I can use a Remote Desktop Connection to connect to our servers, access our Postgres databases, view the Internal Wiki, and so on; even though nothing is port forwarded and only allows LAN IP addresses to connect.

The only caveat to this is that you would need a static IP address. Or at least a way to make it reasonably static so the IP you need to connect to isn't always changing.

[DaveLembke]

Hi Guys

Patio... Its to connect to my Home PC from when on the road to access sites that I don't want to access from the unknown of hotels free wifi, so no IT Help from IT Department. Work doesn't help with safe methods of bill paying and checking on account balances remotely. Fortunately some bills I am able to pay over the phone to avoid having to use a website but there are others that have to be paid online etc. And unfortunately my wife or daughter I don't have paying my bills etc as for the last time I did that it turned into a big mess.  Long story short of extra money I keep in a checking account that is not listed in my ledger, that I know is there to never ever bounce a check, was discovered and spent because wife thought I had extra money to spend.  We have separate accounts for money management reasons where I don't have it burning a hole in my pocket and she does at times. we almost divorced over poor money management problems. There was once a time when she handled all the bills and I paid into one account, but lots of problems with lots of money being wasted and so we now split the bills and have separate accounts and it keeps the peace at home.

BC... I like your suggestion. I am going to look into setting this up. And as far as..

The only caveat to this is that you would need a static IP address. Or at least a way to make it reasonably static so the IP you need to connect to isn't always changing.

I am thinking that if I had my wife or daughter go to What is my IP from the Home Internet Connection and tell me over the phone what the current IP Lease is from our ISP, that maybe this would work vs having to buy a Static IP from ISP.... or is that idea I have flawed in some way to do this over a non static IP Lease?

[BC_Programmer]

or is that idea I have flawed in some way to do this over a non static IP Lease?

You would have to dig into network properties and change the adapter settings for the VPN connection every time it changes, which could be every day.

Dynamic DNS software can be used as well. It runs on a PC and the service would give you a URL which will always point at it, updated via the software run on the system.

[DaveLembke]

Cool ... Thanks for your help with this.