VPN Technologies and Security

Running head: VPN TECHNOLOGIES AND SECURITY
VPN Technologies and Security
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1VPN TECHNOLOGIES AND SECURITY
Question A: Significance in Organizations
VPN is used to provide end to end encryption for internet connection to devices and components
of business organizations. Through encryption, VPN enables secure web connections to these devices,
irrespective of the location the employee uses the internet. Many regions have censorship imposed on the
internet. This significantly affects production of company members when working away from office or
working while out of station. Lists of several locations are shared by VPN service providers from where
countries can be chosen for ensuring fast and reliable connections to company network without blocked
content.
Pre-shared keys are required by IPSec connections for existing in client as well as server for
encrypting and sending network traffic with one another [11]. This enables attackers with opportunities to
hijack this exchanging process and crack the pre shared key.
Such problems don’t exist for SSL VPNs as public key based cryptography is used here for
negotiating any handshake or secure exchanging of encrypting keys [7]. Yet, there exists a range of
vulnerabilities in TLS/SSL a typical example of which can be Heartbleed.
Question B: Role of VPN in securing Businesses
VPNs provide security from hackers, competitors and advertisers, governments as well as fake Wi-
Fi. VPNs enable to remotely connect with a secured server which is hosting data required by the user.
Even the most advanced antivirus and firewall solutions used for securing network connections fail
to provide concrete security from hacking, intrusions and exploits. Only about one-third the malware and
viruses can be prevented by these security applications since they are largely inefficient when not regularly
updated.
The advantages that SSL VPNs have over IPsec VPNs is in security as key sharing process cannot be
hijacked. Bypassing firewalls is another advantage of SSL VPNs over IPsec VPNs as SSL is capable of
travelling over port 443 which is always allowed by most of the networks.

2VPN TECHNOLOGIES AND SECURITY
Authentication and Access Control
Question 1: SSL and TLS authentication
Communications to the right server is ensured by browsers by checking SSL certificates of the
website visited. TSL uses a very efficient authentication protocol for messaging, generation of keys and
cipher suites. TSL offers backwards compatibility with SSL systems. In the recent versions of TSL, perfect
forward secrecy is necessary while RC4 negotiations are restricted.