Virtual Private Networks-A Review

Abstract

The tremendous increase in the number of users over the public network (internet) makes it very difficult to
transmit the information between two parties in a confidential way. However the demand of getting connected to the
internal networks by the employees, organizations, business partners or staff from some external or remote locations so
that they can access the internal private network through the public network for transmitting the information in a
protected way increases day by day. To achieve the secure transmission of information from source to destination,
concept of VPN(virtual private network) was introduced which ensures that the attacker cannot read the data but only
the intended recipient can read it.VPN provides a means of transmitting information in a secure way over a publicly
accessible network(internet) by creating a temporary virtual tunnel through an insecure public network.VPN serves the
functions of a private network with the difference that VPN works over a public network and occupies its own address
space. These networks provide all the parameters that are required for security purposes like data confidentiality, data
integrity and authenticity. Virtual private networks are used by millions of people everywhere throughout the globe for
accessing the websites of their interest that are restricted in their regions, browse the internet namelessly without
disclosing their actual identity and true location to sites, offices, government agencies and also from hackers. This paper
gives an overview of virtual private networks