A business VPN is a secure way for remote employees and contractors to access private networks and company resources through the public internet. It provides an encrypted tunnel for all data traffic between the user’s device and the company’s network, thus avoiding interception and spying.
What is a VPN, and Why Do Businesses Use it?
A VPN is a network that enables users to use the internet to access another network with security. It encrypts all data traffic between the user’s device and the VPN server. They made it difficult for any third party to monitor the user’s online activity or steal their data.
In business, VPNs provide remote employees access to internal applications and data. Additionally, they can establish a unique network connection between multiple office locations. Both scenarios suit the purpose of managing web traffic and protecting sensitive information from potential vulnerability on the public Internet.
What makes VPNs so important to do this? For instance, remote employees. In such a case, the employees’ computers and mobile devices can connect directly to the business’s internal network as they work on-premises.
On the other hand, when employees work remotely, their communication with the internal network must occur over the public Internet. And be subjected to on-path attacks and other methods that can spy on data. That traffic can be encrypted with a business VPN or another security service, protecting it from prying eyes.
Different Types of Business VPNs
Business VPNs have mostly two types: Remote access VPNs and site-to-site VPN tunnels.
1. Remote access VPNs
Remote access VPNs allow users to connect to their company’s network from anywhere, such as homes or a store. Suppose employees not working at the business premises may access the company’s resources.
- Network Access Server (NAS): A specialized server or software application linked to the company’s internal network in a shared server.
- VPN client: It appears as software installed on a user’s computer or mobile phone.
Users who desire to connect to the company’s network divert their VPN client, thus establishing an encrypted tunnel to the NAS. One of the benefits of using an encrypted tunnel is that it allows remote workers to connect to the internal network without exposing their traffic.
2. Site-to-site VPN
Site-to-site VPNs establish connections between two or more networks to a cloud provider, such as two remote sites or a corporate site. This type of VPN allows businesses to share resources among multiple locations and cloud-based apps.
What Differentiates Business VPNs from Consumer VPNs?
Business and consumer VPNs function similarly as they specify encrypted connections with remote networks. However, their primary difference lies in their respective purposes of usage.
The business VPN like ExtremeVPN allow users and teams to connect to their company’s internal network. Conversely, the commercial VPN will enable individuals to establish a connection with a remote server or group of servers that interact with the public Internet on their behalf.
What are the Limitations of Using a Business VPN to Secure Remote Employees Access
Using current cryptographic protocols allows a VPN to encrypt traffic between remote employees or teams and the company’s internal network. Compared to outdated methods such as purchasing a ‘leased line’ from an ISP or manually ‘allowlisting’ IP addresses of home-based staff. VPNs offer amazing cost efficiency and ease.
VPNs, however, come with specific limitations. To delve more in-depth into this topic, we recommend reading articles that cover VPN security and VPN speed.
- Reduced performance: However, VPNs can sometimes slow internet speed because they need to encrypt and decrypt all data traffic. It may particularly impact applications like video conferencing and streaming videos, as they require significant bandwidth.
- Security risks: It emerge when an attacker successfully acquires a user’s VPN credentials. Once acquired, these credentials grant the attacker unrestricted access to all applications and data within the connected network. Therefore, using strong authentication techniques and regularly updating VPN software becomes essential.
- Lack of visibility and control: It teams often face challenges when effectively monitoring and controlling employee internet usage through VPNs. One important issue occurs when employees inadvertently download malware or access unsuitable content, leading to visibility and control concerns. Choosing a cloud-based VPN results in latency penalties as the company’s NAS is physically segregated in the data center, away from the internal network. This additional layer introduces delays to all web requests between employees.
- Mounting costs: When a company utilizes an on-premises NAS to connect with its employees’ VPN clients, it needs to regularly replace the hardware to safeguard against cyber threats. Additionally, if the usage of employee VPN exceeds the capacity of the NAS, the company must replace it to prevent overloads and crashes.
Why is Cloudflare Protecting Remote Employee Connections?
Cloudflare Zero Trust is an IAM product that enables remote teams to work faster and more securely, replacing VPN with Cloudflare’s international network. Rather than positioning internal tools on a private web, teams can:
- Apply them in a multi or hybrid cloud.
- Utilize Cloudflare’s global Anycast network to place them for swift access, enabling remote employees worldwide.
- Save all the requests for application access
Interesting Related Article: “How VPNs Facilitate Better Business in the Digital Age“