Types of Enterprise VPNs
Here are three of the most common types of business VPNs:
- Site-to-Site VPNs: These VPNs link multiple office locations together, enabling secure communications and data transfer between them. The site-to-site VPN is ideal to connect organizations with branch offices, remote sites, or data centers in different geographic locations.
- Remote Access VPNs: Remote secure access VPNs are intended for individual employee or contractor usage, enabling a distributed workforce to consume corporate network resources from anywhere, on any device (whether it’s a laptop, tablet, or a mobile device). These VPNs provide connectivity for remote workers who need secure connectivity to sensitive data, applications, or company’s remote networks.
- Hybrid VPNs: This type of VPN is a combination of site-to-site and remote access VPNs, and is most useful in organizations with diverse network requirements. They offer secure connectivity between multiple office locations, while also enabling remote employees to securely access corporate resources.
Key Considerations for Choosing an Enterprise VPN
To ensure an organization’s network security is both sound and scalable, an effective enterprise VPN solution must balance several key factors:
- Security Features: Adherence to industry security standards are the top priority for any viable enterprise VPN option. This includes incorporation of communications protocols such as WireGuard, OpenVPN, IPSec, and SSL/TLS. The chosen VPN should also use strong encryption standards that meet the organization’s specific needs. The AES-256 encryption algorithm, the de facto standard for securing sensitive data, is commonly available in enterprise VPN solutions.
- Scalability and Performance: An enterprise VPN must be able to adapt to the growth of the organization. A VPN that can scale up to accommodate increasing user numbers, data transfer rates, and geographical reach is essential to ensuring satisfactory remote connections and performance.
- Ease of Management: An enterprise VPN is only effective if administration staff can easily and efficiently configure security settings. Effective security solutions save time and reduce the risk of human error by offering a user-friendly management interface, intuitive centralized control and dashboards, and monitoring capabilities.
- Compliance and Regulations: Certain industry compliance requirements, such as those put forth by HIPAA or PCI DSS, may factor into your choice of VPN solution. Enterprise VPN providers must be able to demonstrate compliance for organizations operating within regulated industries, typically by providing relevant documentation or certifications.
Deployment and Management of Enterprise VPNs
Enterprise VPNs tend to come in two variations: on-premises and cloud-based:
- On-Premises VPN: Installing and managing enterprise VPN components on an organization’s own network infrastructure offers greater control and flexibility, and reduces reliance on third-party providers. This comes at the cost of additional requirements for resources, including IT staff, hardware upgrades, and software deployment.
- Cloud-Based VPN: Cloud options tend to be more scalable and overall more cost-effective, particularly in terms of upfront costs and deployment complexity. Management and maintenance burdens are also reduced. On the other hand, fine-grained control and customization is typically not available, as the organization must rely on the cloud provider’s infrastructure and capabilities.
Whether an on-premises or cloud-based VPN fits the organization’s need’s better, either can serve as a building block in the construction of a resilient Software Defined Perimeter (SDP). Regardless of which deployment model is preferred, the long-term management of an enterprise VPN must be taken into consideration, including:
- Usage Monitoring: Identifying peak usage times, latency, packet loss can inform bandwidth allocation. User behavior tracking, such as logins, logouts and data transfer volumes can highlight suspicious online activity.
- Performance Optimizations: Ensuring the company network can efficiently handle VPN network traffic is an expected challenge. Protocols, data compression, encryption algorithms, end user applications, and network hardware all may need ongoing adjustments to maintain acceptable performance.
- User Education: To maintain a secure environment, organizations should reinforce user education, such as policies that outline appropriate VPN usage and responsible security practices.
Security Best Practices for Enterprise VPNs
Ensuring the security and privacy of communications over VPNs is essential to the effectiveness of confidential data transmission and remote work productivity.
Here are some recommendations for best practices:
- Strong Password Policies: Enforcing strong password policies, requiring multi-factor authentication (MFA) and regular password rotation policies will help to prevent unauthorized access.
- Regular Security Audits: Conducting regular audits to identify vulnerabilities is important for maintaining VPN security. Testing for weaknesses in configurations, network segmentation, and network access controls helps to ensure the VPN is resilient to threats.
- Employee Training: Users of the VPN systems must understand the importance of strong passwords and MFA usage and how to maintain device security. User education should also include the dangers of using public WiFi, how to recognize phishing attempts, and organizational VPN usage policies and guidelines.
By addressing these areas, organizations create a secure and resilient environment that protects against unauthorized access, and informs usage best practices.
Safeguard Your Organization with Quantum Remote Access and Harmony SASE
The modern work environment consists of geographically distributed employees and office locations. Consequently, organizations must provide secure access to company resources so distributed users can work effectively. Businesses rely on enterprise VPNs to establish these encrypted communications tunnels, ensuring sensitive communications for remote users are kept private and secure.
Check Point Quantum Remote Access VPN is an on-prem system that provides users with seamless remote access to company resources. Schedule a demo today to learn how the Quantum Remote Access VPN ensures the security of the most important business communications.
Securing remote access for both on-prem and cloud resources requires advanced, modern solutions. Check Point Harmony SASE (Secure Access Service Edge), a state-of-the-art cloud-based solution, provides industry-leading machine-learning malware detection, high performance and ease of use. Book an appointment to experience Harmony SASE now.
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