Coronavirus is having a big impact on the world. There have been thousands of lives has lost, tens of thousands of cases of infection across multiple continents, at the time of this writing Antarctica is the only continent without a corona virus case.( I guess we all need to start packing our bags and head off to Antarctica 😊)



The global economy has seen trillions of dollars worth of value eroded in the past week. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has just upgraded the corona virus threat level to very high, it still remains unclear if the corona virus outbreak will eventually be reclassified as a pandemic.

The purpose of this article is the highlight how networking and security technology like Virtual Private Network(VPN) can play a role in controlling the spread of the virus and reduce the chances of infection. In this article, I will also provide a very simple explanation of how remote access VPNs work. It is my hope that technology and business leaders(by reading this article) around the world would get comfortable with how remote access VPN technology works and see it as a viable way for their employees to get work done during this outbreak.

One of the recommendations from the WHO is to maintain social distancing of about 1 metre between anyone who is coughing or sneezing. According to the WHO:

When someone coughs or sneezes they spray small liquid droplets from their nose or mouth which may contain virus. If you are too close, you can breathe in the droplets, including the COVID-19 virus if the person coughing has the disease.

I believe that using Virtual Private Network(VPNs) can create this social distance that the WHO recommends.

I also think that if an employee can work can be done remotely then that employee should work remotely at this time. VPN technology to enable such remote working already exists and should be used.

Many companies have VPN deployments for several reasons some of which include:

Technical know how.

VPN Licensing cost.

Employee distrust(how do I know if employee X is really working from home, well guess what - an employees presence in the office does not mean that the employee is being engaged in any productive work either. The metrics for determining employee productivity has to be better than "I have to see employee X in the office" and the onus is on leadership to create objective metrics for determining employee productivity. This metrics should apply regardless of the location of the employee(i.e working from a desk in the office or from a desk at home).

VPN will not work for all employees: If you work in a restaurant or drive a bus or taxi or serve a customer facing role in bank then VPN technology is not your answer and would not make much sense.

However, if you work in a job that is not customer facing and one that requires you to sit at the computer then you are probably better off connecting over a VPN to the office rather than coming to work especially If this virus continues to spread without a vaccine or cure in the horizon.

So How does remote access VPN work?

Remote access VPN allows an employee access company resources(e.g Email, Internal Websites, Internal Services) on the local company network from a remote location(such as a the employees home) securely over the internet while providing:

encryption: This ensures that employees can exchange data with the office confidentially without anyone else on the internet being able to decrypt the data. authentication: This ensures the individual connecting to the office network over the VPN is who they say they are. This could be done using username/password authentication and a hardware token or even biometrics. This is also known as multi factor authentication. (i.e authentication by considering what an employees knows(username and password combination) and what they have: such as a hardware token.) message integrity: This provides the ability to detect main in the middle attacks and data tampering.

The sketch below gives a high level overview of a remote access VPN setup.





As we see on the digram the following components are required to setup the VPN.

1) VPN client: This would be installed on the employees computer. This client will initiate the VPN connection to the VPN headend device over the internet.

2) VPN headend device: This will be a network or security hardware appliance that would typically be installed in the office datacenter. This device will maintain the VPN connection to the client device and would enforce access control to office resources that an authenticated employee has been authorised to access.

3) Servers: You will also need to have another server(s) that provides authentication(such as LinOTP, Active directory), authorization(via a radius server) and accounting services(via a radius server).

It is time to ditch the fear of VPNs and encourage the use of VPNs as appropriate. VPNs when configured properly can improve employee productivity and enable business continuity especially in the current economic and social climate that we find ourselves.