For decades, multinational corporations have reaped the benefits of sharing data and resources across enterprise-wide computer networks. Todays virtual private network (VPN) technology brings those benefits to companies of every size.

Computers have been able to communicate with each other for decades. However, the communication used to be restricted within a site. For instance, if a company had branches in Los Angeles, Cairo and Singapore, information couldn't be shared between branches.

Although the Internet has provided cost savings through network sharing since the 1980s, it is only in the past few years that VPN technology has made the Internet safe for sensitive business communications. The VPN sets up a private tunnel for each site on the network, similar to commercial leased lines, but at a dramatically lower cost. Unlike costly leased lines, the VPN's data is protected using powerful encryption, so that neither hackers nor even ISPs can eavesdrop on private traffic.