Understanding Virtual Private Networks

Understanding Virtual Private Networks In today’s fast paced world, it is not uncommon for people to access sensitive digital data from a network other than the network where the sensitive data is natively stored and maintained. Whether it is employees trying to access corporate data from outside of the office, or customers accessing data from a company’s database, the need to access data from outside of the data’s native network has become a requirement in today’s society. Although there is more than one way to access remote data, the most common technology used is a VPN (Virtual Private Network). A virtual private network is a way to establish a private network connection over a public network (Resource 1). A virtual private network takes advantage of the internet as a backbone for private network connections between remote locations. Although the internet is a common denominator between the two remote network connection solutions, each solution has its differences and both provide different benefits. The two most common options for connecting remote locations, is by way of a VPN or a leased connection. When it comes to regulatory issues surrounding VPN’s, most of the issues that relate to VPN’s are meant to apply towards the internet in general. The cool thing about VPN’s is they provide a secure connection by using an infrastructure that is already in place, so there are not many regulatory issues that independently relate to VPN’s. Before I dive deep into the details of a virtual private network, I first want to explain the popular alternative to VPN’s, which is a ‘leased line connection’. A leased line connection provides a dedicated connection between two private networks that are separated by a public network; when companies negotiate with internet service providers to provide a dedicated