Get Permission Threat actors are exploiting vulnerable Microsoft Remote Desktop Protocol servers to amplify various distributed denial-of-service attacks, according to a report from application and network performance firm Netscout. Netscout researchers have identified about 33,000 vulnerable Microsoft RDP servers that could be abused by threat actors to boost their DDoS attacks. RDP is a proprietary Microsoft communications protocol that system administrators and employees use to remotely connect to corporate systems and services. Microsoft RDP can be configured by Windows systems administrators to run on TCP port 3389 or UDP port 3389, according to the report. The researchers found that when the Microsoft RDP service is configured to UDP port 3389, attacks could amplify network packets from vulnerable ports and redirect that traffic to targeted IP addresses, increasing the size of a DDoS attack at little cost, according to the report.