Leased Line And VPN – The Security Guide
Businesses require technology in order to run. Most of them use either VPN or Leased Line to keep their connection to the different aspects on running them. However, both technologies hold security issues, which you must be aware of.
The following information will offer you theoretical security risks regarding VPN and Leased Line, especially when it comes to issues that can compromise the accessibility or privacy of corporate data.
Security Risks of a Leased Line
- Wiretapping at an office building. For instance, when someone connects physically to your building’s communications equipment. This is improbable to occur unless your business is a high value target, since it is a high-risk technique.
- Manholes wiretapping. This is through the manholes on which the leased line circuits pass. However, this strategy is hard to accomplish that it requires the help of an expert.
- Cable landing stations wiretapping undersea. This security risk only affects global traffic. If you are not involved in any terrorist act, it should not concern you.
- Leased line provider hacking. This is another risk you could view, yet still difficult to be accomplished, requiring the knowledge of a specialist in networking.
- Distributed service denial attack on the hardware’s public IP addresses on which the Leased Line circuits rely. It can potentially bring the leased line down, although it has been configured from running without openly addressable address. With this, it needs some serious firepower from the hacker, because of the powerful core routers, which are capable to process Gigabits of requests every second.
- Accidental disconnection while men at work excavate on the street. It is a very unique possibility.
- Intentional physical circuit disconnection creating “denial of service”.
Security Risks of VPN
- PPTP contains security weaknesses.
- SSL VPN “Man in the Middle Attacks”. These VPNs are very popular, yet when it is poorly configured it may cause weakness to “Man in the Middle” attacks on which you as the user securely connect to an attacker.
- Dispatched software flaws of VPN appliances. Most VPN and firewalls appliances have bugs within their software. Luckily, these are likely hard to exploit and spot.
- Insecurity of home network. Often, VPNs are utilized by staffs who work from home, or utilizing their individual laptops. These devices are usually not sufficiently patched. Although, the devices that connect into the network are patched, other home network devices might be more susceptible to compromise.
- Underlying connectivity total loss. The accessibility of VPN connection is fully dependent on the underlying connectivity. When such connection is lost, VPN will be unusable, which impacts business processes relying on the functioning of VPN.
- Partial capacity loss because of network congestion.
Taking Rational Security Measures Including the Use of Leased Lines and VPNs
The following are some of security measures you must consider when using Leased Lines and VPNs.
- Utilise a VPN for encrypting traffic between offices.
- Utilise a VPN for encrypting traffic between home workers and offices. This offers some security from the network’s insecurity of home owners.
- When require resilient connectivity, consider having two connections.
- Conduct a periodical review of VPN logons through checking for doubtful activity.
- Implement strong passwords and allow users from regularly checking them.
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