RDP Defender

While you may be confident that the security of your Windows server cannot be breached, attacks can still cause damage, even if it is limited to abnormally high resource and bandwidth usage.

RDP Defender is a nifty application that adds an extra layer of protection, as it monitors Windows login attempts and blacklists IP addresses after a certain number of unsuccessful attempts.

As long as your Windows server is publicly available, there is a very high likelihood that hackers, network scanners or bots will, at some point, try to guess your login credentials.

While they may not be successful, these attempts can put a strain on your CPU and bandwidth, so it is best to block them altogether.

RDP Defender is very easy to set up, and it begins protecting you immediately upon launch. If a user is recorded to have attempted to log in from a single IP address for certain number of times, the address is blocked automatically.

Of course, it is possible to unblock specific IPs if you are confident that they are not dangerous, as well as add others to the whitelist.

The failed login attempts counter is reset automatically after a certain number of hours, and this value can be customized.

RDP Defender does not just keep track of login attempts, as it also monitors the status of the Windows Firewall and Logon Audit feature, warning you if either of these two is disabled.

However, given that the program is meant to run in the background at all times, it would have helped if it were possible to minimize it to the system tray.

On the whole, RDP Defender is a reliable utility that can detect failed login attempts and block offending IP addresses, thus protecting your Windows server and reducing resource usage.