If there should be a document at this location, please email us and we will fix the problem. Tampa, Fla. - Seeking to break away from the pack, some vendors and security systems integrators are testing cable as the transport for Virtual Private Networking. Within six months, Fortress Technologies Inc. expects to add support for cable-based VPN applications to its NetFortress line. Fortress, based here, hopes the move will remove barriers that have kept enterprise customers from embracing VPN, namely its sluggish performance in remote and intranet communications. Cable modems and hardware encryption go hand in hand together quite well.
Encryption is seen as the basic building block of VPNs.
Secure Technology is using hardware encryption devices from TimeStep Corp. to secure communications between cable modem-equipped telecommuters and corporate networks, Walder said. Widespread support of IPsec is seen as another key to the proliferation of VPNs. IPsec provides encryption, user authentication and data-integrity features in the network layer. Subtle differences in IPsec implementations still remain, said industry analysts.