In this era, all businesses need technology to run their process smoothly. Most of them either use a leased line or VPN to keep their connections to different aspects to run the business. You can choose one for your business by comparing leased line vs VPN security. However, both of them carry some kind of security issues that you should keep in mind when choosing one.
Companies are especially concerned when it comes to the privacy and accessibility of their data. Therefore, it is difficult for businesses to decide which one is better for their business. To understand it and make an informed decision, you must know the difference between a leased line and a VPN.
Here in this article, we are describing all the information regarding leased lines and VPN and their security risks.
Difference between Leased Line And VPN:
A leased line is a connectivity solution that provides your business with a dedicated, reliable, and high-speed connection. It offers fixed bandwidth along with symmetrical speed, which means that you will have the same upload and download speed. But typically, it provides no authentication or encryption. Benefit of a leased line is that you do not need to share your connection with any other local business, which ensures availability round the clock. Your bandwidth requirements determine whether you need a leased line or not.
VPN stands for a virtual private network that offers encryption or authorisation over a connection that you already have.
That can be an ADSL, a leased line or a mobile network connection. Your security requirements determine whether you need a VPN or not. Vpn Security is a way to secure your data from hackers and secure the data.
Security Risks Of VPN:
Following are the security risks that are associated with VPN.
- The VPN technology that is most commonly used is a point to point tunnelling protocol (PPTP). If you are choosing it for your business, you must keep in mind that this type of VPN has security weaknesses.
- There can be unpatched flaws in the software of your VPN appliances. It means that most of the VPN applications and firewalls have bugs in their software. Luckily, it is difficult to spot and exploit such bugs. If vendors know about these bugs, they tend to fix them to run the software smoothly. However, these patches sometimes do not work expeditiously and leave a window of opportunity for attackers.
- SSL VPN is another type of VPN that most businesses use. It is very popular, but it can be vulnerable to man in the middle attacks in case of poor configuration. The user can connect to the attackers securely, which then connects to the target system with the help of credentials supplied by the target.
- VPN is usually used by individuals working from home or using their personal laptops for work. Very often, such devices have not been patched efficiently. Even if the devices at your workplace are repaired, the devices that your employees use at home may not be patched. It creates a security risk, and sometimes the home network is not configured securely, which allows unauthorised devices to connect to your network. These unauthorised entities can spy on the traffic passing through your network.
- Another VPN security risk is network congestion that causes partial loss of capacity. In this case, the VPN traffic has to pass through the shared network. At the peak time, the bandwidth goes down that causes degradation of service and impacts the VPN usability
- The working of your VPN totally depends on the underlying connection. So if your underlying connection is lost, the VPN becomes unusable. It can impact your business processes that are dependent on a VPN connection.
Security Risks Of Leased Line :
Here are some security risks associated with the leased line:
- The first risk is the wiretapping at your workplace building. It happens when someone physically connects to your communication system present in the basement of the workplace. Typically, it is unlikely to happen, and it occurs mainly with the companies that are high-value targets.
- Wiretapping at undersea cable landing stations is another risk associated with leased lines that only affect international traffic. According to research, the government agencies in the UK monitor the in and out the traffic of the UK. This type of security risk of the leased line will, as you are not involved, not affect you as you are not involved in terrorism. It can be your concern only when you are a non-UK firm and competing with UK firms for multi-billion dollar contracts. To get Best Vpn Uk Click Here.
- An attack of the distributed denial of service on the public IP address of the hardware on which your circuits rely can be another risk. It can lower the performance of your leased line connection even if it is configured to run without publicly available IP addresses. It can be a severe threat to your business and power for the attackers because the core routers they would be attacking are highly powerful and are able to process gigabits of requests per second.
- Wiretapping at manholes through which your fibre optic cables pass. Although it is less conspicuous, it is much more difficult for attackers to do successfully. They may need experts who know how to interweave into a fibre optic and find which one carries your data.
- There can be an accidental disconnection. It may be possible when workers dig up the road or street. You can protect leased line internet by having two connections, one as a primary connection and the other as a backup. So that if one goes down, you can have connectivity through other connections and continue your work.
- There can be an international disconnection of your leased line circuit to make denial of service. For example, opening the manhole cover beneath which your circuit travels or cutting the fibre optic cable or copper wires that carry your data. This type of issue occurs only for a short time because internet service providers constantly monitor the network and spot easily if a connection goes down. It can be difficult and time consuming for them to fix the problem if the attacker cuts through all your cables. There is not much value in disconnecting your circuits deliberately unless you use them for the alarm system.
- There can be a significant security risk if an attacker succeeds in hacking your leased line provider. However, without specialist networking knowledge, attackers can not turn the control of the router through which your traffic passes, even if they manage to hack your computer on the LAN of your leased line supplier. To get access to your traffic, the attacker must know how to reconfigure a router to forward data from your network to another destination.
Do Not Get Scared Of Above Information:
It may be possible that your data is not worth the cost of attack. Other than the PPTP flaw, all other security flaws need a high level of skill to exploit and reach your data. It is not cheap to hire such skills. Attackers may find that your organisation’s data is not worth the cost of paying someone.
- It may be possible that your data is not worth the cost of attack. Other than the PPTP flaw, all other security flaws need a high level of skill to exploit and reach your data. It is not cheap to hire such skills. Attackers may find that your organisation's data is not worth the cost of paying someone.
- The attacker may find easier ways to breach the security other than attacking your VPN or leased line connection. For example, social engineering can be easier than slicing into a fibre optic network and finding which fibre is right. Other than that, attackers can find it easy to attack your website if it has security flaws.
- Your competitor is unlikely to take a risk because the companies who need to get the most out of your data know that the attack can be traced back to them quickly. It can damage their reputation, and the executive responsible for this act can go to jail, and their career can be finished.
- You can use site to site VPN to reduce the chances of an attack on your leased line internet connection. Why give a chance to attackers when you know that your data can be encrypted with the use of a VPN. All organisations use VPN when sending any sensitive data. Attackers know this fact and are less likely to attack the underlying connection.
Take Proper Security Measures:
You can also take some security measures to avoid security risks and keep your business data confidential. Following are some measures that you can consider.
- You should think of using a VPN for the encryption of your data. A VPN may not look perfect theoretically, but it offers encryption that is good enough to keep your data confidential in practice. It is better to have something instead of having no encryption at all.
- You must use VPN encryption when transferring data between your offices and remote workers. However, it can provide some kind of protection from the insecurity that comes from the remote worker's network.
- To avoid the risk that comes with a leased line and get a resilient connection, you must have two different connections with different routes. Especially when your business is internet critical, having two different network circuits is essential so that if one connection goes down, you can use the other one.
- In addition, you must have strong passwords and regularly change them so it can be difficult for attackers to break into your network. Users may find it difficult to change the passwords again and again, but you must insist them to do so.
- You must check the logins of your VPN connection to spot any suspicious activity. For example, keep an eye on whether your ex-employees log on, your manager log on at 3 AM from an IP address of Japan and do any user login from different IP addresses at the same time.
Is A Leased Line Or VPN Right For Your Business?
It is a common question that many business owners ask, and sometimes it is necessary to have a leased line as well as a VPN. However, there are some factors that can help you determine whether it is a necessity for your business or not. Firstly, you must know your bandwidth requirements, how often you need to use an internet connection, how many users you have in your company, and for which purpose you need the internet, such as for video calls, large uploads, or telephone calls. Furthermore, you must consider your budget and security requirements.
Cost :
Leased lines and VPN are incomparable connections because they both have different functions. However, VPN is cheaper than a leased line connection. A VPN is designed to provide security, authorisation and encryption options to those who want to secure their data when transferring it between offices or between the office and remote workers. On the other hand, a leased line UK provides a dedicated internet connection with a fixed bandwidth to the business that needs it.
VPN provides encryption and authorisation over an internet connection that you already have. It can be a leased line, ADSL or mobile network connection. The cost of a leased line is usually high, and especially small businesses may find it more expensive. So you must take into account your requirements to choose the right connectivity solution.
Security:
A VPN and leased line offer your business solutions to two different problems. VPN aims to provide you with high security. It encrypts all the data that you transfer to keep it as confidential as possible. It does encrypt not only your data in transit but also offers additional security measures in which the data needs to be accessed or sent only by authorised persons. A leased line is also a secured network on its own terms. It means where VPN is most secure for you, and the leased line is also somewhat secure. That is why some businesses want to benefit from both VPN and leased lines.
Now that you know, VPN and leased line are two different technologies that are designed for different functions. The function of a VPN is to provide you with encryption and security over your underlying network. The leased line offers your business a dedicated, fast, reliable, and secure network. There are risks associated with leased line security and VPN security, but you can take measures to reduce these risks. We hope that this article helps you in making an informed decision about whether you should get VPN, leased line, or both.
Conclusion:
In this article, we discuss Leased Line Vs Vpn Security. We hope that it helps to understand the importance of VPN security as well as leased lines. Which one is better for you depends on the internet connection requirement and on your company’s budget. In Any Case, Vpn Security helps you protect company data and save it from unethical terms. You can choose the best VPN UK if you have some understanding. It can be really helpful for you. While leased line internet is also a way to secure business data.
