Nick Race07 May 2008, 6:30 AM
Is your software firewall an adequate defence, or not?
Netcomm’s VPN100 is a tool for dedicated road warriors. Oftentimes our folk can find themselves connecting to dodgy or unsecured networks in hotels, at our client premises or public places. Most of us run a software firewall but is that
really enough? NetComm thinks that it’s not — and this is where its Mobile VPN Firewall product VPN100 comes in. This lightweight network interface attempts to secure your connection by providing a Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall and
IPsec VPN with DES/Triple DES encryption.
The device itself weighs about 70 grams and measures 128 x 18 x 62mm. It feeds entirely off the USB port which means that it doesn’t need a power cable or a power supply. In fact VPN100 is so slim and light you can carry it in your pocket. Just don’t forget to grab a USB cable to take with you.
The device has two ports: an Ethernet port and a USB port at the opposite ends of the device. This brings us to the first problem with VPN100. The Ethernet port on the WAN side supports 10/100MB Ethernet. The USB port on the LAN side, however, only supports a 10MB throughput because it runs on a USB 1.1 specification and not 2.0. This is a limitation these days, as it’s feasible that the user could be connecting to the internet at faster than 10MB. You must also remember to carry the USB driver with you if there is a chance you’ll want to use VPN100 on some other Windows system.
On the bright side, having an SPI firewall is very useful. Stateful Packet Inspection firewall checks whether a received packet is legit by analysing its header, contents and return address. It also closes off ports until a connection is required. SPI firewalls mostly help to protect against spoofed IP packets and Denial of Service attacks, including SYN floods and Ping of Death.
VPN100 can also filter Java and ActiveX programs, cookies and block access to proxies. The user can further elect to block individual sites by URL.
The other major selling point of VPN100 is its IPSec VPN capability. Up to five tunnels can be created and used with VPN100. It’s unlikely that you’ll need much more than that. IPSec 56-bit DES and 168-bit Triple DES are available as a way of encryption for your data. For authentication, MD5 and SHA are available. Key management can either be
manual or automatic (IKE).
Like any other router these days, VPN100 provides a decent web-based user interface. It’s very basic but it’s easy to navigate and configure. By default the integrated DHCP server supports 50 IP addresses. It’s very easy to increase the amount if there are more users, although given the assumed usage for this device you are unlikely to do that.
NetComm’s VPN100 has a number of flaws such as its USB 1.1 specification and limited operating system support. However, for travellers who need a secure VPN tunnel back to their workplace and a good firewall, this isn’t a bad solution. We would’ve preferred to see a few more routing options and a more sophisticated user interface with a much better logging component, but there is only so much we can expect from a device that weighs 70 grams. The other thing going against VPN100 is of course Wi-Fi. As wired Ethernet continues to become obsolete, so will VPN100.
VPN100 is a very basic router. Get it only if you are constantly on the move, require VPN as a means of connection and the places you go to still haven’t gone wireless.