Introduction To Information Security
Teacher : Mr. Timothy Tacker
Unit 8 Assignment 1 Network Hardening
Network Hardening
Network Layout 4 : VPN (Remote Access Domain) – Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) with VPN software and Secure Socket Layer/VPN (SSL/VPN) tunnels
A Virtual Private Network or VPN enables a computer or network-enabled device to send and receive data through shared or public networks as if it were directly connected to the private network, while it’s benefiting from the functionality, security and management policies of the private network. It was created to establish a virtual pint-to-point connection through the using of dedicated connections, virtual tunneling protocols or traffic encryptions.
Three Strategies for hardening the network environment
1 Firewall Friendly VPN
The increase demands of e-business come with a compelling requirement for data security. Virtual Private Network with IP Security Architecture (IPsec VPN) meets this requirement by providing end-to end encryption and authentication at the IPlayer and protecting confidential data that flows over possibly untrustworthy networks. IPsec has the advantage of a wide scope of coverage and agile granularity of protection; however, incompatibilities exist between IPsec VPN and the Network Address Translation (NAT) that firewalls use.
2 Security policy enforcement:
Means of enforcement of security policy should be a primary consideration throughout the research, test and implementation phases of any security technology. Careful research, review of manufacturer’s documentation, questions presented to vendors and manufacturers, and testing of the technology can serve to meet this criteria. Without a method of enforcement, effectiveness of security policy is questionable at best. While audit trails, hardware analysis and security logs should be reviewed regularly; it is a time-intensive process and this alone alerts the administrator to violations and security threats