Sohail Sarwar,
2 factor authentication is great, but personally I would go one further
than Philip. I would not be putting VPN clients on employee owned
systems. Yes, I say no clients - period. Too many variables - too
insecure.
I understand that it's expensive, but none the less, I would either put
in a Citrix farm or purchase dedicated, company owned and maintained
machines for your employees to use at home. Add the VPN client to these
machines company owned machines.
When considering the speed and volatility of trojans and viruses these
days; Adding VPN to an unknown, uncontrolled, insecure client - even
after adding Antivirus checking, etc - is simply asking for trouble.
Of course, we haven't even touched on the legal and privacy implications
of the company having direct access to an employee's personal network,
all computers there-in and visa versa.
VPN on employee machines == bad idea - don't do it. Provide Citrix or
dedicated, managed machines.
Regards,
Andrew Vliet
-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce@securityfocus.com [mailto:listbounce@securityfocus.com]
On Behalf Of Philip Cox
Sent: Tuesday, June 19, 2007 9:25 AM
To: 'Sohail Sarwar'; pen-test@securityfocus.com
Subject: RE: Security and VPN
-----Original Message-----
From: listbounce@securityfocus.com
[mailto:listbounce@securityfocus.com] On Behalf Of Sohail Sarwar
Sent: Monday, June 18, 2007 6:08 AM
To: James Patterson; pen-test@securityfocus.com
Cc: holstein.robert@bls.gov
Subject: Security and VPN
Hi there,
I just wanted to put this out there. How secure is VPN.
Meaning, if my users take home the client and install it on their
desktop at home, and connect to the corporate network and production
network, wheat are we really looking at. Are they secure or not.
Just given this decription, I would say NO, they are not secure.
Has anyone been through this. Any one give home users a list of
requirements that they must have before vpn can be offered to them ?
Should there be some type of desktop policy installed on their
home
computer, just to protect the company network ? Any help and guidance
would be great
My recommendation would be to...
1. Require 2 factor authenticaiton for VPN access 2. Ensure that the VPN
server/environment performs some type of system validaiton prior to
letting the system have full access to the internal network. This
typically includes verifying a patch level and that anti-virus is
installed and up-to-date 3. Use the VPN server to restirct where the VPN
client can connect 4. Review the VPN server logs for who is accessign
the server and from where
Just my $.02
Phil
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