[vpn] dangers of vpn to local network

Dan McGinn-Combs Dan.McGinn-Combs at geac.com
Mon Feb 4 21:05:10 EST 2002


Brian,
It has been my contention that you are putting yourself at risk doing this.

Your local network is now subject to the security policy of the VPN host
network. Your machine becomes the infection vector through which the VPN
host network machines can infect and/or attack your local network.
Basically, you have expanded your zone of trust to the VPN host network.

You should at the very least, run a very good and up to date virus
protection software on your VPN mahcine. I would also highly recommend a
personal firewall in addition to your local firewall (which is likely to be
some kind of router like the Linksys/SMC which provides minimal firewalling
by way of NAT). This will protect you not only from access from the VPN host
network, but, should your machine get infected/hacked, it will help protect
your local network from being hacked themselves.

Good luck!

Dan

-----Original Message-----
From: btm [mailto:btm at pixi.com] 
Sent: Monday, February 04, 2002 4:56 PM
To: vpn at securityfocus.com
Subject: [vpn] dangers of vpn to local network


If I have a network at home (behind a firewall) and someone gives me a vpn
client so that I can vpn to their network, what risks are posed to my
network at home?  If I connect with the vpn, can someone on the remote
network come through the vpn and access my machines (other than the one with
the vpn client)?  Thanks, Brian.


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