Is IPsec more secure than SSL?

Which is considered the most secure type of VPN?

One can argue that all the virtual private network services currently available today fall into one of the following three categories: PPTP over SSL/TLS, L2TP/IPsec, and IPSec.

There are many other solutions out there that offer even more security but they can be a lot more complex to implement and use than these three services. We at Pro VPN will focus this article on our take on the above three types of VPN services available to businesses today because not only do they fall into common categories, they're the most popular solution among IT professionals we've talked to and for good reason.

The first VPN solution on the list is based on the Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol (PPTP). It's one of the oldest VPN protocols around and provides the best balance between the ease of use of OpenVPN and the security of IPSec. PPTP falls under the category of Virtual Private Network (VPN) solutions but they're usually paired with additional technology that provides added layer(s) of security such as end-to-end encryption so PPTP alone doesn't provide the type of security that you might think. With that said, PPTP is also relatively easy to use since it's protocol is a wrapper around Internet Protocol (IP) communications. We'll talk more about the pros and cons of PPTP later. In the last part of this section, we'll also explore some more complex VPN solution that offer additional features such as client remote access technology.

The other major VPN solution in use today, and the one at the forefront of this article is L2TP/IPsec. L2TP is a simplified version of VPN protocols with its base being an extended User Datagram Protocol (UDP) protocol, while IPsec (or IPSec for short) extends IP packets with encryption and authentication attributes for greater security. This is a protocol that provides better compatibility with existing network infrastructure as it falls well within the TCP/IP or internet protocol suite but it can be somewhat tricky to setup if you don't have access to a VPN service provider who already offers L2TP/IPsec.

Pros: Easy to use since the VPN client/server communication is based on TCP (port 1723).

Is IPsec more secure than SSL?

I'm interested in IPsec (IP security), and in securing my home network. I don't mean just home user computers, but as well as the network itself. The issue I'm trying to figure out is if IPsec (aka IPSec) is a better choice than SSL.

Both IPSec and SSL provide security of communications between systems. And both are commonly used.

However, I am seeing a lot of articles that make assertions about how secure IPSec is compared to SSL. Can anyone tell me if these articles are accurate? For example, here is an article from PC Magazine: IPSec offers many benefits over SSL. For example, the latter can be broken or bypassed. If someone is able to get access to your encrypted traffic, they have much more information than you do, including which sites you're visiting, and which ones you're trying to protect.

If you're not using SSL (because you don't want anyone else to see your unencrypted traffic), then obviously you're at risk of having your data stolen. However, if you're using IPSec to encrypt only the data you need to send or receive, then even if someone gets hold of the contents of a message, they won't get anything useful from it. That's because the messages are protected by a public/private key encryption. That's just not an easy way to break. You'd need to know the key.

Even if you send the messages unencrypted over your existing network, the recipient's network is protected by the same public/private key cryptography. So the packets are encrypted twice, and protected from being sniffed.

So from this article it seems clear that IPSec is more secure than SSL? Is this true? I'm trying to figure out if I should use IPSec or not. It seems more secure, and easier to setup, so I should use it right? However, when you hear that IPSec is more secure than SSL, and that if someone steals your data, they're going to get it with either, then I'm left wondering, is it more secure than SSL? My current thoughts are, yes, IPSec is more secure than SSL.

What is one advantage of using IPsec over SSL?

What is one disadvantage of using IPsec over SSL?

What are some benefits to using IPsec over SSL? What are some disadvantages to using IPsec over SSL? How can I improve my knowledge about IPsec over SSL? How do I use IPsec over SSL to secure a network? What is the role of key management in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of trust relationships in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of encryption in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of authentication in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of integrity in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of confidentiality in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of data encapsulation in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of compression in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of address re-use in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of key establishment in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of protocol support in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of tunnel mode in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of packet aggregation in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of security associations in IPsec over SSL? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in mobile devices? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in WLANs? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in storage area networks? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in wireless sensor networks? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in virtualized environments? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in software defined networking? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in cloud computing? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in distributed systems? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in home networking? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in IP multimedia subsystems? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in content distribution networks? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in content centric networks? What is the role of IPsec over SSL in data centers?

How safe is IPsec?

In a recent Cisco Press publication, "A Simple Guide to IPsec" (www.cisco.com/en/US/prod/collateral/security/ps4084a/ps4085/PS4084
PGMENHT1271CPS405Final1-261166.html) there is an interesting point raised about IPsec - the IPsec Security Association process. Some people seem to think it has an Achilles heel as far as reliability and speed is concerned.

That particular article focuses on the concept of the Security Association process. Here's a short quote from it: "Security Associations have their own authentication process that is separate from the data-link layer. In IPsec, the process is an asymmetric key exchange with Diffie-Hellman. During the Key Exchange phase of this two-way handshake, the initiator generates a random secret value and sends it to the responder. This random secret value is called the KEIn our example, KEA is 32 bytes. The initiator then encrypts the random secret value using the Key Encipherment algorithm in IPsec."

The following text from the same article elaborates: "If the response is received successfully, the Security Association now has an authentication key for that initiator and the responder. This authentication key has now become a trusted link and is considered to be "alive". When the connection is now closed down, the initiator sends a FIN message back to the responder. At this point, it is assumed that both the initiator and the responder have terminated the connection."

And on page 4 we learn: "Now when the initiator starts to send a packet, its data payload is encrypted using the AES encryption function, using the authentication key derived earlier during the Authentication phase. When the receive side receives the packet, it does decryption and verification using the authentication key. The packet contents are verified with the ciphertext of the packet. If everything checks out, the packet is discarded. If not, the packet contents are discarded. The packet is dropped.

By contrast, in the plaintext mode, the contents of the packet are not encrypted before being sent. Instead, the packet contents are simply transmitted. The packet does not require encryption or decryption.