VPN-is it secure?

[mystvearn]

Is VPN secure? If I use it at my institution, will the servers pick up the up/dl data? Can they unencrypt the data and know the data contents? Is there a secure way of transferring data without people sniffing the pockets and track what kind of data that is up/dl?

[Force Flow]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_Private_Network

A lot of technical stuff, but briefly, it's a tunnel between end points. It should be encrypted between those endpoints, so the most anyone would be able to see are the source and destination IPs of the packets (so they can be routed to the proper place, of course). The two ways this is done is that the original packet is either encrypted and encapsulated by another packed with routing information, or only the data portions of the packet are encrypted (tunnel mode vs transport mode)

The two most common VPN security methods to be used are IPSec and SSL/TLS. IPSec is pretty much what I mentioned above. SSL/TLS utilizes a Certificate Authority's digital signature. Because of this, IPSec is a bit more prevalent since it's easier to set up and maintain (and doesn't cost anything extra since Cisco and Cisco-like networking equipment already has the ability to fully utilize IPSec)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPsec
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transport_Layer_Security


The VPN I'm currently utilizing for work employs PPTP (it's not all that secure because of unauthenticated packets, allowing them to be spoofed by 3rd parties).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PPTP


OpenVPN is another notable, but I don't really have much to say on this one since I haven't really encountered it myself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenVPN

[mystvearn]

I know there are private lines like financial institutions use to transfer data, but it cost a lot. Although I need to transfer data, I don't need a private line. I have in the past used OpenVPN which requires a key and username. The company offering the services said to me that they can monitor everything which is done, but they only monitor the transfer rate (up/dl) of the customer and not have logs of the web usage. I am not sure if I could trust them or not.

[Force Flow]

Anyone can monitor the amount of traffic going through their network regardless of the kind of encryption. That's like counting the number of plastic egg machines found in arcades or malls without knowing what the prize inside really is.

As for what you're looking for, why are you looking at a VPN for a solution?

[mystvearn]

Because its a cheap solution? I am not sure if there are any other solutions which are effective and cheap as VPN.