What is Remote Access Service and who benefits from it?

The pandemic was a turning point for how organizations regard remote access. Now, employees and third parties accessing sensitive systems and data from outside the corporate network is a must-have, everyday requirement, not a nice-to-have or emergency-only situation.

In fact, the volume and diversity of work that contractors, vendors, and other third parties handle is exploding, as companies tighten their belts and hiring slows, and employees with specialized technical skills are increasingly difficult to find. In this new environment, organizations must balance remote productivity with remote security or risk falling behind.

Why do organizations need secure remote access?

Remote staff need immediate privileged access to systems to keep operations running. IT teams handle technical troubleshooting, configuration, patches and upgrades, development, testing, and more – all remotely. Meanwhile, business users need continuous access to applications, databases, and workflow tools to get their jobs done.

Managing this blossoming number of remote users is challenging for IT and security teams who are already overwhelmed by an increasingly complex attack surface, fighting a steady onslaught of cyberattacks. A process that creates a unique identity for each user on each system will soon become untenable. On the flip side, a system that encourages shared identities, privileged accounts, and passwords makes it impossible to enforce least privilege, zero trust best practices, and provide tracking of individual privileged behavior that auditors and compliance regulations require.

That’s why organizations partner with Delinea to incorporate Remote Access Service into their cybersecurity toolkit.

Secure Remote Access with Delinea Remote Access Service (RAS)

Delinea’s Remote Access Service simplifies and automates remote access management for the IT resources people need to be productive. With RAS, you enhance security and ensure seamless usability when allowing remote users access to servers and other systems within your network. You can confidently embrace third-party vendors, contractors, and a remote workforce with the required level of security controls.

Benefits of Delinea Remote Access Service

RAS is delivered on the Delinea Platform and leverages Secret Server’s robust vaulting and Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) capabilities to provide secure access for a remote workforce.

Enterprises measure the benefits of using Remote Access Service in many ways:

Convenience for your IT team

RAS securely manages remote employees and third parties with browser-based Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) and Secure Shell (SSH) solutions. All users need is a browser on any device to access RAS from anywhere.

Productivity for end users

Remote users and the IT operations teams that support them love that they don’t have to deal with the complexity and management headaches of Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Without the need for workstation-based security tooling, RAS reduces the load on help desk teams. Instead, RAS establishes rapid, secure connections using an easy-to-install server gateway. This method improves connection speeds and avoids the disruption of random VPN drops.

With RAS, the onboarding of remote employees, contractors, and partners happens more quickly. RAS includes self-service access request workflows for just-in-time, just-enough privileges with approval, under controlled conditions. As a result, people can be productive right away and stay productive because they have access to the resources they need.

Security for your business

Because there is no direct network connection with RAS, you don’t need to worry about spreading endpoint viruses or malware from remote users into your network. In addition, there’s no jump host that can expose the broader network.

Your Virtual Private Clouds stay private because RAS’s modern architecture avoids opening additional firewall ports.

RAS also provides the opportunity to apply more granular access controls than a course-grained VPN solution could ever make possible. In fact, because RAS is tightly integrated with Secret Server, privileged behavior of remote users is fully audited, which isn’t possible with traditional VPN-based or RDP-based solutions. Plus, access expires automatically after use, which means no more standing or forgotten privileges.

Using RAS is simple and intuitive. Here’s how it works:

	Launch Session The RAS web application establishes a secure connection to Secret Server and displays available credentials to the remote employee. The remote user simply clicks *launch* to create an RDP or SSH session.
	Create Browser Session When the session is launched, RAS creates a new reverse tunnel directly to the protected resource. A browser tab containing the SSH/RDP session is opened.
	End Session After the remote employee’s work is finished, the session is disconnected, the tunnel closed, and the secret access logged for auditing and reporting within Secret Server.