Type 'mmc' into the search, and select 'mmc.exe' (Microsoft Management Console). Here is a step by step guide on how to obtain your RSA host key fingerprint for RDP sessions in Windows 7:įirst, click on the start button (or press the Windows key on the keyboard).

Does anyone know where I can view the key? I searched online and couldn't figure out any way in Windows 7 to view the RSA fingerprint of the key RDP sessions use. The problem is, when I logged into the physical machine to find out if the RSA key had changed, I couldn't figure out where to go to view it. (If there wasn't, then it would be likely that there was a man-in-the-middle attack going on.) At this point, common sense and my knowledge of security tells me I wasn't supposed to connect until I logged into the machine physically and checked that there was indeed a new RSA host key for RDP. He said nothing had changed that he was aware of. So I asked the admin at my company if he had done some updates or anything that would have changed the key Windows uses for RDP sessions.

(The x's were actual numbers.) I checked my Linux known_hosts file for the machine I was connecting to, and yes, indeed, the RSA fingerprint for the machine did change. The fingerprint for the host key sent by the remote host is It is also possible that a host key has just been changed. Someone could be eavesdropping on you right now (man-in-the-middle attack)! One day, I come in and attempt to connect, only to be presented with this: WARNING: REMOTE HOST IDENTIFICATION HAS CHANGED! IS POSSIBLE THAT SOMEONE IS DOING SOMETHING NASTY! Typically, I provide my credentials and the IP address of the machine and everything works fine. I use xfreerdp to connect to a Windows 7 machine from Linux with RDP. My company admin just found the answer to this question as I was writing it, so I'm posting it here for others:

Virtualbox host key window view