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de:VPN es:red privada virtual fi:VPN fr:Réseau privé virtuel ja:Virtual Private Network zh:虛擬私人網絡
A Virtual Private Network, or VPN, is a private communications network usually used within a company, or by several different companies or organisations, communicating over a public network. VPN message traffic is carried on public networking infrastructure (ie, the Internet) using standard (possibly unsecure) protocols.
VPNs use cryptographic tunneling protocols to provide the necessary confidentiality (preventing snooping), sender authentication (preventing identity spoofing), and message integrity (preventing message alteration) to achieve the privacy intended. When properly chosen, implemented, and used, such techniques can indeed provide secure communications over unsecure networks.
Note that such choice, implementation, and use are not trivial and there are many unsecure VPN schemes on the market. Users are cautioned to investigate products they propose to use very carefully. 'VPN' is a label which, by itself, provides little except a marketing tag.
VPN technologies may also be used to enhance security as a 'security overlay' within dedicated networking infrastructures.
VPN protocols include:
- IPSec (IP security), an obligatory part of IPv6.
- PPTP (point-to-point tunneling protocol), developed by Microsoft. (uses insecure RC4 for encryption).
- OpenVPN SSL based encryption available for many operating systems.
- L2F (Layer 2 Forwarding), developed by Cisco.
- L2TP (Layer 2 Tunnelling Protocol), including work by both Microsoft and Cisco.
Multi-protocol label switching can be used to build VPNs.
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