Should enterprises implement a mandatory iPhone VPN?

Should enterprises implement a mandatory iPhone VPN?

I've heard that some vendors are beginning to offer VPN support for the iPhone. We have a number of iPhone users in our organization. At what point should we consider a mandatory iPhone VPN?

    Requires Free Membership to View

    SearchSecurity.com members gain immediate and unlimited access to breaking industry news, virus alerts, new hacker threats, highly focused security newsletters, and more -- all at no cost. Join me on SearchSecurity.com today!

    Michael S. Mimoso, Editorial Director

    By submitting your registration information to SearchSecurity.com you agree to receive email communications from TechTarget and TechTarget partners. We encourage you to read our Privacy Policy which contains important disclosures about how we collect and use your registration and other information. If you reside outside of the United States, by submitting this registration information you consent to having your personal data transferred to and processed in the United States. Your use of SearchSecurity.com is governed by our Terms of Use. You may contact us at webmaster@TechTarget.com.

The iPhone actually includes a built-in VPN client that supports standard PPTP and L2TP VPNs. Unless your organization only supports IPsec VPN connections, you should be able to configure the iPhone to access your existing corporate VPN. You can access the iPhone's VPN capability by choosing General → Network → VPN from the Settings screen. If you have no choice other than IPsec, hold on to your seat. Apple is promising to support the Cisco IPsec VPN client in version 2.0 of the iPhone software, due out this summer.

The decision about mandating VPN usage depends upon your organization's security requirements. Mandatory VPNs are worth considering in the following circumstances:

  • You use content filtering on your network and wish to limit the network access of iPhone users.
  • You're concerned about users accessing unencrypted services on a public network and wish to provide a secure tunnel back to your corporate network.

    When it comes to making decisions about VPN use, there's honestly not much difference between an iPhone and any other computing device. If you require VPN connections for all travelling laptops, it probably makes sense to also require them for iPhones. If you allow travelling users to access the Internet directly, you can implement the same policy for iPhones.

    More information:

  • A reader asks Mike Chapple, "How expensive are IPsec VPN setup costs?"
  • Learn how a DMZ server and VPN are able to co-exist.
  • This was first published in April 2008

    Join the conversationComment

    Share
    Comments

      Results

      Contribute to the conversation

      All fields are required. Comments will appear at the bottom of the article.