What is SSL VPN used for?

SSL VPN is very popular for use with personal computers and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.

It is also known by the name IPSec or Internet Protocol Security. It is commonly used for secure remote access to the company network or internet. Here are some of the most common uses for SSL VPN:

Remote desktop access using a laptop or computer over the internet. Accessing company network services or websites over a public network or the internet (eg for home workers). Accessing applications that are not accessible over the internet. Secure remote access from a mobile device. Secure communication over an insecure network (such as Wi-Fi hotspots). Securing sensitive information such as passwords and credit card numbers when browsing the web. Using SSL VPN with business networks. Your office or business network connects to the internet via a router or a wireless access point. If you have more than one employee using SSL VPN to connect to your network remotely, you need to be able to give them access to the same private network so that they can access common resources like shared printers and file servers. This means that every user in your company needs a unique set of login credentials (or a password) to access the shared resources on the server. It is also important that you don't provide users with accounts which have their own access to any shared resources. If the user gets an account of his/her own, they may get access to important files and sensitive data. This is why all users should have an account which gives them access to only specific resources (which is called segregation of duties).

You cannot just ask users to generate a strong password for each account - these would be too long and thus easy to crack. There must be an admin login which has all the administrative rights (to delete accounts, add new accounts and perform other functions) - but no access to any shared resources. With this setup, the admin login will have a different password to everyone else, and no one can access anyone else's data.

SSL VPN is ideal for the above. You only need one account which can provide access to the network. Everyone else will only be allowed to access common resources. Since the private network is accessible over the internet, this setup will effectively isolate any sensitive data from the outside world.

What are the 4 main types of VPN?

The 4 major types of VPN are: OpenVPN.

PPTP. L2TP. IKEv2. What is a Virtual Private Network? A VPN provides remote access to network resources from a remote site. The end point of the VPN server is called a 'gateway'. Connecting clients to the gateway is similar to connecting directly to the network, but with an encrypted tunnel. The client gets assigned an IP address from the gateway which matches its external one. The client connects to the gateway (via the public internet) with standard protocols, and the gateway creates a tunnel for the traffic, encrypted by means of the VPN protocol, using security mechanisms.

How does VPN work? A VPN allows users on computers connected to the public Internet via a modem or broadband internet connection to access resources in private networks which would normally be inaccessible to them. The main part of the VPN connection is a tunnel which links the remote computer to an Internet connection and then through the public internet. To allow user level access to services in the private network, each Internet connection uses a set of protocol rules which specify how to route packets through the tunnel. Most network connectivity protocols that the server uses to communicate with the rest of the world can be encapsulated (wrapped up) to travel through the tunnel.

How do I access resources on a private network via VPN? Your VPN server is the firewall for your entire home network. The VPN server will have the network routes it needs to access resources within your private network. Before the VPN connection is made to the remote VPN server, it will make the necessary router changes so that traffic can be redirected to the VPN server. These include:

Making sure the public internet router is not routing traffic to your home address through the VPN server. Making sure the VPN server is able to access all the routes into and out of the network. Connecting to the VPN server when your VPN software is installed. Connecting to the VPN server when your software has been uninstalled. The VPN server uses a public IP address. If you had a dynamic DNS solution then you'd have an address which points to your current IP, but in the above example the address is pointing to your IP address. Your home router routes traffic coming from outside of your network through the VPN server so that it doesn't hit the regular public internet network.

What is IPsec VPN used for?

There are many types of VPNs, but they all have something in common: They are used to encrypt and securely route your internet connection.

IPsec VPN will route your connection securely to a different IP address so that your internet traffic is invisible to anyone or device sniffing. These are the same services being offered by major telecommunication companies that route your calls and data through another country with little risk to their network's reputation. This VPN provider routes your traffic through the USThis allows you to access any websites outside of your home country that has a Geo-restricted website. By using IPsec, you are going to be accessing secure sites even if there was an opportunity for someone to eavesdrop or intercept your traffic. For example, the NSA can intercept traffic between your home server and the cloud storage service of Rackspace but will have no idea of your specific information you are accessing because it's encrypted.

The reason why I love the United States based providers is they also give us added level of security when we need it as well as giving more flexibility to protect your information. Our nation's top intelligence and law enforcement agencies depend on the United States based providers to secure their communications and prevent them from being tapped. Most of us are aware of the government tapping cell phones and phone lines. However, the other form of wiretapping is when they listen in on the conversation on a computer over the internet. For example, when you open up a browser, it sends a request to the remote computer, the internet provider, sends a request back to your computer and then you make a request to the website you intend to use. The internet provider can listen in on all of these request and responses and gather information about you. IPsec VPN protects this type of communication even though it's encrypted because you are not accessing it through your home router which often gets compromised through some other form of wiretapping or by using your computer to eavesdrop on you.

How do you use it? Most people are familiar with Tor and Onion Routing. Both techniques work well but there are times when only IPsec VPN will work best for you. When browsing the Internet, if you use a computer in your house, it's already behind your home's router.

What is the purpose of virtual private networking?

Why can't we rely on local DNS resolvers and public DNS?

Websites like Cloudflare, Amazon and Google, are able to provide VPCs based on the global consensus protocol, BGP. In our post, we already mentioned that in this scenario VPN was mainly used to avoid IP restrictions imposed by the company itself and also to access their servers out of the country of the user base. Now we will talk about security aspects of the virtual private networking.

IPv4 address block shortage. The problem with IPv4 is that only 3.2 billion addresses are available globally. This will be exhausted sometime around mid 2024, leaving us with very little time to decide what to do with that.

In addition, you can't get a static public IPv4 address. Even if you were given one, there would be very few providers offering your specific IP in their public domain. In reality, most companies would have chosen the route of private allocation over public one.

These 2 factors are very big limitations to virtual private networking, because not having private IPs will make it very hard to implement a VPN solution. It's not even going to be an option at that point. To fully support all of the needs that we want a VPN to support, our plan should be to use some mix of public domains and private ones. It does take a bit of effort on part of the consumer, but it can be done if we have enough time.

A good thing is that even though IPv4 address exhaustion is near, the problem is quite new. After all, the current Internet protocol was first created in the 1980's. Although the number of addresses seems small now, at the time were not aware of how powerful the power of the Internet was.

This was a great advantage to the growth of the network, the way we communicate and the websites. There were no limits at that time, yet we now find ourselves trying to limit the consumption in a different way.

If the network size grows so far, we just hope that the public will be kind enough to keep this number at least. If they are not, private networking could become a popular alternative here again. In any case, VPNs should still find an additional value that no private networking service can offer.