RE: VPN

[Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Chuck, we have a LinkSys VPN appliance that acts as our firewall - low 
buck, I know, and there are other more secure options. That unit is exposed 
to the outside world. From home I use a VPN client on my W98 machine. 
Others have XP, which has IPSEC builtin and can be configured nicely for 
this router. The goal is to shut down everything and only allow VPN traffic 
into the internal network. This router uses essentially a password (shared 
secret), not a digital certificate, so it is more crackable than other 
systems. There are a number of architectures for firewall/VPN setups that 
I've seen - I like the integrated appliance approach, but others know the 
alternatives.

For us this is adequate. We've tried to understand, to some degree, anyway, 
our exposure, and are satisfied with the cost-risk-benefit of this setup. 
But please do not go with a solution until you've looked at the risks and 
the value of what you are protecting, and the cost of protecting it. 
There's no one-size-fits-all solution, IMO.

Cheers

Vern

At 02:00 PM 2/4/2003 -0500, you wrote:
> I am new to all of this (as of late last year and a VPN to allow our Sales
> folks to access our AS/400). As you note, this was not always supported.
>
> Our AS/400 isn't public and the VPN router sits behind a firewall. Is that
> of concern ?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Chuck