As discussed in earlier chapters, many of the technologies underpinning the way in which networking works were designed with considerations quite different to those facing IT professionals and computer users today. Among the most salient of these are concerns about security.

Remote access, another principal concern among IT Professionals, is the practice of allowing employees, contractors, clients, and suppliers to access resources and services over a Wide Area Network or the Internet. This practice, since it necessarily involves not only connecting a company's internal network to the Internet but also allowing traffic from the Internet to gain access to the internal network, brings with it inherent security risks. Some of them stem from the ability that remote access systems give to an attacker to probe and attack the network, while some of them stem from the fact that conventionally, information is passed over the Internet in plain text with no form...