Securing enterprise applications using RDS RemoteApp

Windows 2008 has a new feature in Remote Desktop Services (RDS a.k.a Terminal Services) that allows individual applications to be presented to users via RDP. Although the applications are installed and run on Terminal Server (now known as Session Host), Users interact with the virtualised applications as if they were installed locally. This feature is known as RemoteApp.

There's a growing security demand for Internet traffic to be segregated from the corporate applications due to the recent high profile APT incidents. We conducted a trial that leveraged primarily on this RDS RemoteApp. Internet applications (i.e. Internet Explorer etc) are virtualised and executed via RDP, which effectively permit only screenshots, key stroke and mouse clicks to be transmitted between client and server. Even if the Internet applications were subverted by Trojans, it would have no impacts on existing corporate applications. Corporate applications are protected and there's no drop in user experiences. The setup is simple and fits well on existing infrastructure. And the trial is a huge success.