Knowledgebase

Portal Home > Knowledgebase > VPN: General Questions > How does the VPN technique work? How does a VPN tunnel work?

How does the VPN technique work? How does a VPN tunnel work?

VPN (virtual private network) is a technique which is used to create safe encrypted connections between point A and point B over an unsafe public network such as the Internet. The VPN (Virtual Private Network) will allow you to access all the Internet resources through our servers using a secure encrypted connection. This allows you to hide your internet traffic and identity from praying eyes as well as bypass restrictions from your ISP or system administrator.

With a VPN, your computer or mobile device is connected to the Internet as usual. Then you connect to one of our secure VPN servers. All your internet traffic is then encrypted and routed securely and anonymously bypassing your ISP.

VPN’s create “virtual” point-to-point connections using a technique called tunneling. As the name suggests, tunneling acts like a “pipe” which penetrates through a network to connect two points. Normally activated by remote users, tunneling encrypts data into standard TCP/IP packets and encapsulates it for safe transmission across the Internet. VPN ensures the confidentiality and integrity of the data as it travels over the public Internet because it requires: Remote user identity authentication/Secure private transmission of data (no unauthorized listeners Verification of unadulterated data transmission. The VPN connection behaves like this: You connect to the Internet in the normal manner, through your ISP. The VPN4ALL software on your computer initiates a connection with the VPN server. The VPN server encrypts the data on the connection so it cannot be read by others while it is in transit. The VPN server decrypts the data and passes it on to other servers and resources.

When a data packet is transmitted from a client, it sends it through a VPN gateway, which adds an Authentication Header for routing and authentication. The data is then encrypted and, finally, enclosed with an Encapsulating Security Payload which contains the decryption and handling instructions. The receiving VPN router/ server strips the header information, decrypts the data, and routes it to its intended destination. With such a heightened level of security, an attacker must not only intercept a packet, but decrypt the packet as well. Intruders who employ a man-in-the-middle attack between a server and client must also have access to at least one of the private keys for authenticating sessions. Because they employ several layers of authentication and encryption, VPN’s are a secure and effective means of connecting multiple remote nodes to act as a unified Intranet.

Is the Information incorrect or does it contradict what we say somewhere else at the site? These FAQs are a work in progress and unfortunately as a result our product updates and network changes we can't always get it right instantly in all the FAQs. Please let us know if you see something incorrect and we'll do everything we can to straighten out the misleading bits and pieces! None of these FAQs answer your question? Search our Knowledgebase or Ask Support.

Add to Favourites    Print this Article

Who typically uses a VPN? (Views: 430)

What reasons could I have for a VPN service? (Views: 455)

What is VPN? (Views: 416)

How does VPN protect my anonymity? (Views: 665)

Why do I need a “personal” VPN, isn’t my firewall and anti-virus enough? (Views: 596)