VPN risks – and must-have security featuresĪre VPNs safe? Admittedly, there are security risks associated with VPNs. However, network reliability and performance might become an issue, especially when connections are tunneled through the Internet. In the enterprise, VPNs are used in number of ways, including remote access for users connecting to the corporate network from home or a mobile device, intranet connections among fixed locations such as branch offices, extranet connections with business partners such as suppliers and customers, and wide area network (WAN) replacement for geographically dispersed networks.Īs a WAN replacement, VPN can be cheaper because it requires less overhead to maintain and offers better scalability. A VPN is just one way to reduce security risks from third parties. Third parties, such as vendors, contractors, and suppliers, could pose risks by accessing corporate resources in an insecure manner. Of course, it is not just employees working remotely who could endanger the security of corporate data and networks. VPN remains a viable option for securing data transferred over public Wi-Fi. Many of these mobile workers use public Wi-Fi to access corporate data, and more than one-third never use a VPN to protect their data even though two-thirds are concerned about public Wi-Fi security, according to a survey by iPass.
The nature of the public network is irrelevant to the user because it appears as if the data is being sent over a dedicated private link.Īs workers become more mobile, VPN connections allow users working at home or on the road to connect in a secure fashion to a remote corporate server using the routing infrastructure provided by a public network, such as the Internet. This process enables the data to travel securely over a shared or public network to reach its endpoint.ĭata packets passed over the public network in this way are unreadable without the decryption keys, thus ensuring that data is not disclosed or changed during transmission.įrom the user’s perspective, the VPN connection is a point-to-point connection between the user’s computer and a corporate server. How does a VPN work?Ī VPN involves the transfer of encrypted data wrapped with a header containing routing information.
Device trust - like that provided by Kolide, this article’s sponsor - can improve VPN security by allowing only secure and properly configured devices to connect to an organization’s network, adding an additional layer of assurance on top of VPN security.īut before examining the limitations of VPNs, let’s take a look at how they work. VPNs provide secure connections by encrypting data and sending it through a “tunnel,” but there are limitations to that security. VPNs were developed to solve two challenges: the high cost of leased lines for branch offices, and the growing need to enable remote workers to access the corporate network securely. One solution is a virtual private network (VPN), which enables employees to securely send data between computers across a shared or public network. With more and more employees working remotely, either from home or on the go, enterprises need a way to secure their communications with the corporate network.
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