Last week I awoke to find several unauthorised transactions on my paypal account. Paypal confirmed that the IP address used to order the items was indeed, my IP but as I live alone, it was pretty obvious it wasn't me. I freshly installed windows and my AV came up clean.
After a week, I watched as my laptop suddenly logged me off and a new user "putin1" appeared. Further investigation revealed I have been subjected to a sustained brute force attempt to log in to my pc via RDP. I use RDP a lot so leave my laptop on so I can connect and do tasks from work, when out etc.
I have a vigor 2820 and use a free dynamic name host.
Can someone please advise on how to harden my router against these attacks. I understand that changing the port from 3389 is one technique but numerous attempts have failed, therefore its highly likely that I am configuring it wrong, is there a guide tutorial on this procedure?
Finances don't allow for a vpn so have to do this as cheaply as is possible.
Is it possible to lock out an ip address after a number of failed log in attempts. My password was quite strong but is now very strong so I suspect use of a rainbow table.
Thank you for any input.

You have my sympathies.

cornz wrote: Finances don't allow for a vpn so have to do this as cheaply as is possible.

You already have a VPN! See https://www.draytek.co.uk/archive/vpn_setup2.html or HERE

Just don't use PPTP, except maybe as a test, to get it all going.

hornbyp wrote: You have my sympathies.

cornz wrote: Finances don't allow for a vpn so have to do this as cheaply as is possible.

You already have a VPN! See https://www.draytek.co.uk/archive/vpn_setup2.html or HERE

Just don't use PPTP, except maybe as a test, to get it all going.

Thank you. That gives me something to go at.
I didn't believe paypal at first when they said the originating IP was "mine". I had noticed odd instances where I was apparently logged in from elsewhere. As I said, all AV came up clean before and after a restore image made apx a year ago.

Brute force is harder with a strong password (presumably that was the first thing you changed, as well as your Paypal password and any other service accounts and the router login password). As others have said, your Vigor 2820 can do better than PPTP though, as it's old, not the very latest protocols (but it will still do IPSec/AES).

admin wrote: Brute force is harder with a strong password (presumably that was the first thing you changed, as well as your Paypal password and any other service accounts and the router login password). As others have said, your Vigor 2820 can do better than PPTP though, as it's old, not the very latest protocols (but it will still do IPSec/AES).

The real beauty is that my paypal acct had been closed for 3 months!! The bank refunded me the £176 worth of fraudulent charges.
Yes, passwords changed, I had a different password for my user and admin accounts. Router password is also different.
Well, I think that the vpn guide is the one i'll try first.