Microsoft® Windows® Group Policy Guide

Understanding IPSec Policy

The sections that follow discuss how you can use IPSec and IPSec policy. As you’ll see, you can use IPSec with or without an Active Directory environment, but the management and distribution of IPSec policies is much easier if you have an Active Directory and Group Policy infrastructure in place.

How IPSec Works

Internet Protocol security (IPSec) is an Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) standard (RFCs 2401-2409) for providing secure network communications over TCP/IP. IPSec provides protection against common types of attacks, such as:

• Data modification, where an attacker modifies the data as it travels between the source and destination devices

• Identity spoofing, where an attacker impersonates the source or destination ...