Writing Information Security Policies

VPNs, Extranets, Intranets, and Other Tunnels

The growth of the Internet and Internet technologies have created new opportunities for extending the organization’s network infrastructure to include remote offices, customers, and even allow employees to telecommute over public networks. We create these extensions by creating a tunnel between the LAN and the remote site.

In networking terms, a tunnel uses the Internet as part of a private secure network defined by a path traffic may travel. Usually, these tunnels are encrypted to prevent eavesdropping, but encryption is not a requirement. After all, Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP) is a tunneling protocol. However, as organizations look to expand their networks across many offices or provide access ...