Terminal Services over a VPN

We are running Terminal Services on a Windows Server 2003 SP1 server. We are accessing the server remotely via a VPN connection from our remote locations.

I understand that Terminal Services itself uses encryption to secure the connection. That being the case, do we necessarily need to use a VPN to connect to our server?

Of course, we have a static IP address that we connect to from the remote locations.

If, as I believe, Terminal Services uses encryption for the connection anyway, could I simply open the appropriate port on our main office's router/firewall to forward the TS port to our Terminal Services Server? The reason I'm asking this is I suspect doing so would slightly improve our connection speeds between remote location and main office, making more efficient use of our ADSL connection. In effect, we would no longer be encrypting the connection twice, as Terminal Services would be the only encryption mechanism.

Of course, doing this raises the security question: How secure would a simple TS connection be via the public Internet? We are a dental office, and aside from the normal security concerns about conducting business over the Internet, we have the HIPAA act (Health Information Portability and Accountability Act) to contend with regarding security of protected patient information.

Thanks,

-=> Carroll McAllister <=-

coming to you "almost live" from Searcy, Arkansas
.

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