Secure Internal Networking

An internal VPN capability can be useful in many situations, a few examples of typical scenarios are given:

• Secure wireless access – Commonly used wireless access protocols offer relatively weak levels of security. Therefore, intruders could potentially access and intercept confidential data directly on an organization’s internal network. The Smoothwall can secure wireless access by providing an additional interface as an internal VPN gateway. By attaching a wireless access point to this interface, wireless devices can connect and create a secure tunnel to the internal network that you want. Without the necessary authentication credentials (a certificate), wireless intruders can't gain access to any network resource.
• Hidden network access – You can create a hidden network that can only be accessed via a secure VPN tunnel. This might be useful to guarantee that certain resources can only be accessed by an exclusively authenticated member of staff. To do this, create a network that's not bridged to any other. Nominate an internal interface as a VPN gateway and set the internal interface to the hidden network.

There's no complicated configuration process for creating such internal VPNs, the facility is provided by globally nominating an internal VPN interface and creating tunnels specifying it as its interface.