Two Factor Authentication - 2FA for VPN Login
If you are using a Virtual Private Network ( VPN ) to allow your users to connect over a public network, enhancing the security becomes a concern since users gain access to sensitive digital assets. miniOrange can be of great value here by providing 2-factor Authentication on top of VPN Authentication. This secures the access to protected resources instead of relying on only the VPN username / password.
Problem
1. Why are VPNs used ?
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are used by enterprises to establish a secure and encrypted connection between their employees’ devices and internal / global servers.
VPNs are used to give remote employees access to critical information and resources. A VPN is required for this purpose as employees should not access company information over public networks, because this exposes the information to a large variety of security threats.
2. Why are VPNs less secure by themselves ?
In an eye-opening article by Forbes, organizations all around the world figured out just how vulnerable all of the “secure” VPNs in the market are.
Here is a chain of Statistics on VPNs that could make you reconsider your VPN’s security -
Of the ~5 Billion users on the internet today, ~25% use VPNs. That is an overwhelmingly large number of access points to critical information and must be secured without any compromises.
This research thesis found that almost 40% of VPNs contain some form of malware in them. Even more surprising is the fact that this same study found over 70% VPNs to embed some form of unreliable and unethical third party tracking tool in the service.
Free VPNs, and even a few paid VPNs have an internal data rate limiter setup, which almost guarantees slower speeds and consequently lesser efficiency.
Advertisements on VPNs are an issue of great concern as most Advertisements come attached with a risky user fingerprint which can only be made by tracking and sharing user data.
3. Why is MFA used ?
Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) is a simple yet efficient solution to security vulnerabilities that may arise on the internet. MFA enables users to go through a secondary, more secure layer of authentication to ensure they get access to their critical resources securely.
MFA comes in various forms - and users as well as providers get to decide which type of MFA factor should be used for their use case.
miniOrange lets you set up MFA for your VPN using 15+ pre-built methods, all of which ensure top-of-the line security for you and your users.
4. Why should MFA be applied to VPNs ?
As we’ve seen above, the list of VPN vulnerabilities is endless. Especially when it comes to enterprise VPNs, all of the providers are already under the radar of the U.S. government’s Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) according to this alert.
When MFA is applied to your VPNs, it ensures one whole security aspect is taken care of, by guaranteeing that only verified and authorized users are given access to enterprise resources.
Another article touches upon the deep threats that may arise in popular enterprise VPNs due to an Authentication Bypass Bug.
Yet another resource talks about the various privacy busting bugs found in popular VPN services.
Solution
1. What can be done to solve the problem ?
As is clear by now, the problem is imminent, and the solution is obvious. Applying a reliable and secure layer of MFA to your VPN solves the threats and brings out multiple added benefits.
Multi-factor authentication validates user identity with passwords with an additional layer of authentication (e.g. OTP over SMS/Email). This provides greater identity assurance of a user who is accessing any resource via VPN.
So with multi-factor enabled on your system, it prevents the hacker from accessing the resources even if they know your username and password. As you have an additional layer of authentication, a hacker has to pass that layer which is not possible.
2. What are the requirements ?
Remote Authentication Dial-In User Service (RADIUS) is a client/server protocol that provides client authentication and authorization. It enables remote access servers to communicate with a server to authenticate users and authorize their access to the requested system or service. Your VPN Server must support the RADIUS challenge if you want to enable all of the 15+ authentication methods.If, by chance, your VPN vendor doesn’t support RADIUS Challenge, you can still use MFA with a relatively smaller pool of available factors.
Implementation
1. How does miniOrange step in ?
miniOrange can help you easily setup MFA for your VPN and solve the problem of security vulnerabilities as well as privileged access control.
Here is a list of all of our pre-integrated VPN applications -
Single Sign-On (SSO) for Pre-Integrated Apps - VPNs
Popular RADIUS Clients miniOrange integrates with:
- Palo Alto
The users enter their AD credentials to log in to Palo Alto, the Radius Client, and after the username/password validation, an One Time Passcode is sent to the user's mobile number. The user enters the One Time passcode received, which is validated by miniOrange to gain/deny access to the user.
- OpenVPN
The users enter their AD credentials and the 2FA code ( Software Token ) to log in to OpenVPN, the Radius Client, and after the username/password validation, are prompted for the 2-factor authentication. Post validation of 2nd factor, users are logged in to OpenVPN.
- FortiNet
The users enter their AD credentials to log in to FortiNet, and after the username/password validation, an push notification is sent to the user's mobile, that he needs to accept to get logged in to AWS.
Click here to read more about VPN and Multi Factor Authentication.
Click here to read more about how RADIUS Authentication enables VPN - MFA.
2. How can you start ?
It’s fast. It’s easy. Choose your current VPN -
3. When can you expect a solution?
Right away.
Visit https://www.miniorange.com/contact to reach out to us and we will respond to your request on priority.
Visit https://www.miniorange.com/businessfreetrial to create your free account and get started right away.
Check out https://www.miniorange.com/ to read more about who we are and what we do.
Conclusion
The threats of using VPNs are piling up with every passing day. Very soon the industry will notice that organizations will move to layering their VPNs with Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) just as fast as they moved to using VPNs in the first place.
The Problem is widespread, but the solution is now available. miniOrange strives to rid the internet of security vulnerabilities that may damage critical information and resources.
