Re: Opinions on VPN?

[Andreas Gunnarsson <Andreas.Gunnarsson () emw ericsson se>]

On Sat, 17 Apr 1999, Jan B. Koum  wrote:

>       Am I alone in the opinion that VPN mostly suck or is it just
> because I tend to run into a lot of misconfigured cisco routers which
> do encrypt data, but also route packets from others into your net :(

I think VPN is a useful tool but you shouldn't allow a VPN through a
firewall IMHO. Here is a way to use a VPN:

Internal net ----- Firewall ----- external net
                      |
                 VPN-gateway

The firewall lets only ipsec (or whatever the VPN is using) through from
the outside to the VPN-gateway, and then the firewall can filter the
unencrypted traffic that goes to the internal net.

If two sites connects this way it should be as secure as the VPN and
firewalls. If mobile clients connects to the VPN you have to make sure
that the client itself is secure so it can't be used as a way into the VPN
via NetBus etc.

   Andreas

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Andreas Gunnarsson                                         Nat:    031-7476081
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