What is a VPN?
The term VPN is very popular in the IT world today and it gets thrown around quite often as a method interconnecting data networks. I’m sure some of you have been sitting in a meeting and heard the phrase “we’ll just use a VPN” and had no idea what they were talking about. To be quite frank, being a Network and Security Engineer for many years now I’ve heard the question “What about using a VPN?” way to often by someone that didn’t really didn’t even know what it was. If you do know about VPNs then this article is probably not for you. However, if you don’t know what a VPN is or know very little about them then I think this article can offer you some insight into the world of Virtual Private Networking. The most common function of a VPN is to connect multiple private networks securely across an unsecured public network like the Internet. A private network in this case would be a network in which the traffic is not freely accessible by the public.
A Virtual Private Network (VPN) provides an encrypted connection (secure tunnel) from outside networks or Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to the UNC-Chapel Hill internal network. UNC has installed a Cisco VPN concentrator that allows authorized users to access network resources from off campus using an ISP dial-in, DSL or cable modem service with Onyen authentication. You can work securely, just as if you were physically on campus.
A virtual private network (VPN) is a way to use a public telecommunication infrastructure, such as the Internet, to provide remote offices or individual users with secure access to their organization’s network. In the past, companies would have rented expensive systems of leased lines to build their VPN only they could use. A VPN provides the same capabilities at a much lower cost. A VPN works by using the Internet while maintaining privacy through security procedures and tunneling protocols such as the Layer Two Tunneling Protocol (L2TP) or IPSec. In effect, private data, being encrypted at the sending end and decrypted at the receiving end, is sent through a “tunnel” that cannot be “entered” by any other data.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. It is a set of technologies that allow us to build secure “virtual” paths between the University and computers on insecure networks. The particular type of VPN USF uses is commonly known as a tunnel mode VPN. What this means is that if you are on the Internet from somewhere other than the university, when you activate the VPN software a “tunnel” is created between your computer and the University network. Once the “tunnel” is created, all transactions that take place between your computer and the University network appear as if you were within the University network.
