During the Corona virus pandemic, the use of remote access technologies has increased dramatically. Specifically, the use of RDP(Remote Desktop Protocol) and the use of VPNs (Virtual Private Networks) has increased by 41% and 33% respectively.
This is linked to the fact that a large number of companies recommend teleworking to employees, which usually involves connecting to private networks through remote access technologies such as RDP and VPN.
According to data compiled by Shodan, a search engine that detects devices connected to the Internet, the number of RDP endpoints has increased from the 3 million recorded at the beginning of the year to 4.4 million, as noted on Sunday 29 March.
This data includes only the RDP end points that are running on standard RDP port 3389. However, Shodan’s founder and chief executive, John Matherly, says a similar increase was also seen in port 3388, which is often used by many system administrators to protect the RDP service from attacks.
Matherly points out that the number has increased by 36.8%, from 60,000 at the beginning of the year, to over 80,000 today. Similarly, the number of servers using VPN protocols such as IKE and PPTP also increased by a third, from 7.5 million systems, to nearly 10 million today.
VPN usage increased sharply. However, these numbers include VPN servers that are installed as ports on private and corporate networks.
Since a large number of users remain at home due to the lockdown that has been imposed around the world with the corona virus pandemic, many have resorted to using Virtual Private Network applications to browse the Internet from home.
For example, last week NordVPN told ZDNet that it had seen a 165% increase in users since March 11, while VPN.SURF reported a 124% increase in VPN Solutions use in the US. Although the numbers are unofficial and based on third-party tracking, the Top10VPN site also noted a similar increase in VPN demand across the market, reporting a 65% increase in VPN demand in the U.S., compared to the last quarter.
