The Benefits of VPNs

Virtual private network can be said as an extended private network that allows users to send and receive the information through public networks. They are directly connected to private network and are offers security. Virtual private networks us used to secure the transactions that take place over the network. It also prevents the access from geo restriction area and make sure authenticated connection is established. It is created so that secure point to point connection is established and assures that data is encrypted [1]. It is a service that allows taking online benefits by just offering monthly charges. The goal of VPN is that it generates temporary IP address and hides the actual address so that unauthenticated users do not access the information. While using VPN there are various benefits that are observed is that more privacy and more security is achieved. VPN connections are more secure as they allow information to be read only by the valid users [2]. It also offer better website access and blocks the website that does not have a valid IP address. The major things that take place at time of virtual private network are hiding the actual IP address from the world. It is not publicly visible instead of that people generally see a different IP address. The internet connection is also kept hack proof so that activities could be tracked and secure delivery of information is accomplished. It assures that traffic travel through a secure channel and all the information is coded into a form that is not readable [3]. Virtual private network allow user to access the web safely and privately. The working mechanism of virtual private network is simple as a software is used that encrypts the data before ISP does that. The data after encryption goes to virtual private networks then only the data is transferred to the online servers. Thus, readers are not aware about the location from where data is coming as the location of computer is kept private.

Virtual private networks hide the actual address so that chances of hacking get reduced.

VPN offers security as it hides the IP address by connecting the server to VPN network and conceals the real IP address. Security is the main reason why virtual private networks have become popular [4]. These act as a firewall and protect the data from all the hackers by creating a secure tunnel and encapsulating all the information so that data remains confidential. Virtual private networks are considered as an essential part of rounded security. They make sure that confidentiality, integrity and availability is met and there is no data loss at time of establishing connection [5]. VPNs are generally preferred over proxies.

The history of Virtual private network arrived with the need of keeping the data private and secure. It offers a private connection over the internet and encompasses different protocols that allow users to connect through remote locations [6]. The traffic over the virtual networks is encrypted so that access of information is only to limited people.

The Drawbacks and Challenges of VPNs

The basis use of virtual private network is that it hides the IP address and the location so that it cannot be tracked. It also encrypts the data from all the middle man and cyber-attacks. It also optimizes the speed and offer unlimited bandwidth [7]. Virtual private networks also allow to access the blocked websites from anywhere by avoiding the censorship and surveillance. Virtual private network is a technology that creates a safe connection and creates a secure channel to have communication [8]. In this report, the history and background of virtual private network is discusses along with understanding the significance of VPN for contemporary organisations. The challenges and drawbacks of VPN are listed and solutions are offered [9]. It is found that VPN has helped in resolving the drawbacks that are faced by business activities. Apart from that architectural structure of the organisational is discussed.

In the views of [11], a virtual private network is an encrypted form of connection that takes place over internet and it ensures that sensitive data is transmitted. It also prevents the access of unauthorised user and allows users to work from remote locations. This technology is widely used in corporate environment [10]. Thus, it can be said as services that make use of various tunnelling protocols to encrypt the data and allow people to clear the issue of bypass and geo blocks.

According to [12], VPN was started in 1996 just when peer to peer tunnelling protocol was developed by one of the Microsoft employee. The concept of virtual private network has changed drastically with time. It is a technology that was developed by multinational companies for their personal goals. The motive behind developing this technology was that companies needed a private way through which secure communication channel could be established for sharing files [12]. It also allowed employees to access important files between different locations without the risk of information getting leaked. The need of virtual private network arrived due to many hackers and cybercrimes. Thus VPN resolved the risk of unauthorised access and making sure that sensitive information is not steeled.  According to author VPN has become an important part for the entire organisation as it provide employees to access the private network of business and permit them to view companies data from anywhere at any anytime [13]. This has improved the availability and has offered ways accessibility to employees.

It can be considered as a business tool as with the increasing use of internet the need pf VPNs have also increased. In the views of [14], the use of VPN service have become so popular due to increasing number of privacy scandals like wikileaks and many others. After such privacy scandals people have become aware of their online privacy rights. Other Platforms like Netflix and Now TV came into the market that offered online access to on demand service. People have stated using VPN services very frequently as they have unblocked the access of platforms. The future of VPN services is quiet bright and it will become more and more common in the upcoming years [14]. VPN in future will allow tracking all the users that are working online and will permit them to browse the information from anywhere. From the research it was found that user of VPN has grown from last few years and will increase more with time. It was seen that 170% growth was from less developed countries. Additionally, the data showed that almost 1.80 billion people make use of VPN regularly [15]. In future virtual private network will be used for open source project, protocol obfuscation, and anonymous token authentication, access control over the network, multi factor authentication and client automation.

Solutions and Future of VPNs

In the views of [16], virtual private networks can be seen as local network that allow devices to connect to each other without any use of interne. They set up tunnelling protocols by setting up secure connection and hiding the original details [17]. The benefits of VPN are it allow private networks and offer high security.

According to [17], it was found that VPN have proved to be beneficial for contemporary organisation as it allows companies to share their sensitive information securely between computers over the network. It is also useful in organisations as it allow them to communicate between virtual teams privately by keeping the information sensitive. It is true that businesses look for virtual private networks to transmit their information over large geographical location [18]. VPNs have eliminated the concept of open public internet ad closed private line network. Earlier virtual private networks worked on frame relay technology. This technology offered secured connection between two physical locations but still it was costly and have high maintenance cost. This technology did not offer the service for mobile employees. The goal of offering connection in mobile condition lead to the development of internet based VPN [19]. This technology made use of internet to form a secure connection between various users and assures that companies can transfer their sensitive information securely.

This approach is quiet beneficial for organisations as they offer data confidentiality and integrity by making sure that information is read only by valid users [20]. The confidentiality states that information remains protected from all the unauthorised parties. Integrity of data reflects that message is not modified or altered by anyone else in the network. VPN is considered secure because of these reasons and it is assures authentication of information. By making sure that information is received from a valid source [21].

Information is divided into small bits of IP packets and then these packets are transmitted through different routers. These networks are called virtually private as these packets are passed over dynamic network. It means that actual physical location is kept private and the address is not visible over the internet [22]. VPN make use of tunnels to hide such labels and it has been proved beneficial for the organisations as there information remains private. VPN encapsulates the information and keeps the data securely.

Virtual private networks are widely used still there are various challenges that are faced by the companies. The design and implementation of virtual private is very complex and it requires higher level of understanding so that security issues could be resolved. The other challenge that is faced in terms of scalability d that additional infrastructure needs to be created so that technical issues could be resolved [22]. The cost of deployment increases if infrastructure is not same. Virtual private network sometimes causes security issues in case of wireless connection. Thus, it is important for the IT professionals to establish a secure solution. There are four major problems that are faced by companies with VPN connections. One such is that VPN connections are often rejected by the clients due to poor routing and remote access facilities. The other reasons due to which connections are refused by the clients are unauthorised connection [23]. Sometime unauthorised users gets the access to network which can violet integrity, availability and confidentiality. Apart from that there is the inability to reach locations beyond the server’s area. This restricts the access area and can cause problem in seeking for permission to access the network.

Virtual private networks play an important role in business as they keep all the data safe from snooping this is possible only by VPN software [24]. They encrypt all the information by establishing VPN connections and then possibly tracking the traffic. Thus it is found that VPN can keep the communication and all the transactions secret. They also resolve the issue of geo blocking and censorship this means that they refuse in showing the locations to the public world [25]. Apart from that there are some sites that are blocked by governments or particular country, in that case VPN allow accessing the censored sites.

In the recent times it was found that organisations have become dependent on virtual private networks for security. As internet has become more accessible and bandwidth has also increased crimes this leads too many security breaches scandals. VPN is an effective means of exchanging from one area to other and keeping it secure [12]. It is a community of authorised users and this technology is widely used by organisations so that they can transfer sensitive information over internet without worrying about that can access the information. Organisations have a surety that there information will not be leaked as everything’s goes over a secure VPN [23].

Some of the reasons due to which VPN is used by contemporary organisations are that it offers services like flexibility and ease of application and service integration. It also enhances the security because of its physical isolation and restricted usage [11]. The need of virtual private networks arrived with the openness of internet that created relatively insecure environment that cannot be trusted. They apply various approaches like tunnelling, access control, encryption, and integrity and user authentication. Virtual private networks provide well defined performance parameter that is managed by various service level agreements. In addition it is a cost saving approach. One of the special protocols that are used by Virtual private network is tunnelling [5]. In this packets are encrypted and then transmitted over the channel along with that the actual IP address is changed so that packets cannot be tracked over the network.

The scope of VPN is that in ensures that unauthorised users do not access the internal networks of an organisation. The use of virtual private networks is to be controlled by one time password and it also forces all traffic to and from the PC to tunnels. The scope of VPN is that in reduces the risk of security breaches and cybercrimes.

In order to resolve the problems that Virtual Private Networks are facing are illustrated below. For one clients with Clusters of remote agents and contact centres located all across the globe. Users at the remote areas can download VPN software client, compatible phones needs to be installed as well as individually logging into the a particular cloud-based server so as to utilise telephony services and software related to virtual contact centre. The added advantage of utilising remote-access VPN solution is that it allows security, encrypted connections [4]. At different locations, contact centres can be managed with the help of inbound calls while the customers takes advantages of utilising VoIP technology that too when used with cloud-based solution at feasible prices. VPN can be used as a gateway connection to a SIP trunk that gets combined with their servers. By making tunnel into their servers will help customers to manage their calls effectively and will allow cost reduction from virtual numbers as well as helps in gaining competitive VoIP calling rates throughout several nations. An encrypted connection needs to be made between the networks. By doing it consumers realises the robust functionality, reduced costs and hosted operations of solutions given in the cloud. In order to remove Subnet Conflicts VPN must not be same local subnet [1]. This can be done by giving secure remote access.

In order to counter the routing challenges, the best solution still remains to be providing cloud-based systems where thousands of sites can be given access from the single point. For solving the problems related to firewall opening, all relay VPN connections can be installed inside out and standard web ports can be utilised. Such encrypted connections are ended at the central internet-based server [18]. From such encrypted linkages, the connection among the devices and engineers can be established dynamically.

In order to remove challenges related to firewall blocking, only defined device agents are limited automatically to only giving access to the services and ports described for any other agent type. These get activated only when the linking to the agents represents the end device. For the challenge related to activity logging, it is essential to give highly specified secure remote access points so that logging activity becomes easier. In order to remove the challenges related to concentrator management, administrator need to dynamically issue account controls and certificates.

Future research areas

There are several areas in which researches in VPN are going on.  The most significant area is to counter the amount of increase in the numbers of VPN users. It is getting difficult to handle such large network and providing them all with the encrypted connections [4].  With the increasing numbers of attacks on these types of Network, researches have to be more significant. Some of the significant areas of research are:

• Researches in Open source projects
• Researches related to Protocol obfuscation
• Scientists are working on Authentication through Anonymous tokens
• Researchers are concentrating on Network Access Control
• Complete VPN client automation are being tested
• Multi-factor authentication is getting found out

Conclusion    

From all the above discussion it is found that virtual private network encourages productivity by making employee and staff aware about internet vulnerabilities. They also make organisations and clients feel secure by assuring that their sensitive information will not be leaked to unauthorised users. Virtual private networks have helped contemporary organisations by allowing them to stay connected to their clients from anywhere and resolving the issue of sharing the IP address. Apart from that virtual private networks also offer some of the drawbacks like complexity in setting up the network and controlling the entire business through a VPN hosted   network. Thus, to meet the standards this requires a reliable internet service provider. Virtual private networks have gained popularity but still there exists a little limitation as it requires a detailed understanding of network security so that configurations could be done easily. The reliability and performance is not under the control of organisation. Thus, it can be concluded that it is a technology that improved online security and privacy as all the connections are encrypted. As the data is encrypted it remains hidden from internet service provider that protects the personal information from leakage.        

It can be stated that future works of Virtual private network industry will grow as in today’s time it is used to offer remote access to network resources. In the upcoming years VPN technology will focus more on privacy and a step would be taken towards online privacy as well. VPN subscriptions have increased after the anti-privacy bill as now more focus is given in authorizing ISP’s so that customer’s data can remain secure. Everything will be automated on the VPN client and the management side. Network administrators won’t need to take care of anything related to VPNs. VPNs have become much more common from last year and will occupy a huge place in the next 10-15 years. There work same as firewalls but it the coming time everyone will switch from firewalls to VPN. In the coming years it is predicted that VPNs will focus on Network Access Control, assessing the connecting device to determine if it is in the right state to connect. VPNs will focus on authentication. VPNs will be built into the operating system and will be invisible to end users. Thus, some of the predications of how virtual private networks will work in future are discussed.

References

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