I am a developer, but every so often need access to our production database -- yeah, poor practice, but anyway... My boss doesn't want me directly on the box using RDP, and so we decided to just permit MS SQL Management Console access so that I can do my tasks. So right now we have the SQL box somewhat accessible on the internet (on port 1433 if I am not mistaken), which opens a security hole. But I am wondering, how much of an uncommon practice is this, and what defaults should I be concerned about? We use MSSQL2008 and I created an account that has Read-Only access, because my production tasks only need that. I didn't see any unusual default accounts with default passwords on the system, so I would be interested to hear your take. (And of-course, is there a better way?)