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Open source remote access to Windows
Free for All
A large university was recently in a bind. They needed to become PCI compliant, which meant securing remote access to their Windows servers with two-factor authentication.
Most Windows-based remote access solutions that support two-factor authentication are quite costly, even for a relatively small number of users. Times are tight all around, especially for public institutions like this university, so this organization turned to an open source remote access solution, FreeNX, and the WiKID Strong Authentication System for two-factor authentication.
The WiKID system [1] is a dual-source, two-factor authentication solution that combines public key encryption embedded in software tokens and PINs to create a cost-effective, secure, one-time password system. With this setup, users start the WiKID token on their PC or wireless device and enter their PIN, which is encrypted and sent to the WiKID server behind the corporate firewall. If the PIN is correct (knowledge of PIN is one factor) and the encryption is valid (possession of the private key is the second factor), then the one-time passcode is generated on the server, encrypted, and returned to the user. The server comes in an ISO or RPM version.
Fast Access
FreeNX [2] is a great remote access program. It uses the NX protocol, which was released by NoMachine [3] as open source. According to the FreeNX website, the product "provides near local speed application responsiveness over high latency, low bandwidth links." And, it's right; FreeNX is very fast. It is tunneled through SSH, uses PAM for authentication, and supports VNC, Remote X, Session Shadowing, and RDP. Thus, FreeNX is the ideal solution for this use case.
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