According to the CISSP For Dummies4, the activity that would present a significant security risk to organizations when employing a VPN solution is simultaneous connection to other networks. A VPN is a technology that creates a secure and encrypted tunnel over a public or untrusted network, such as the internet, to connect remote users or sites to the organization’s private network, such as the intranet. A VPN provides security and privacy for the data and communication that are transmitted over the tunnel, as well as access to the network resources and services that are available on the private network. However, a VPN also introduces some security risks and challenges, such as configuration errors, authentication issues, malware infections, or data leakage. One of the security risks of a VPN is simultaneous connection to other networks, which occurs when a VPN user connects to the organization’s private network and another network at the same time, such as a home network, a public Wi-Fi network, or a malicious network. This creates a potential vulnerability or backdoor for the attackers to access or compromise the organization’s private network, by exploiting the weaker security or lower trust of the other network. Therefore, the organization should implement and enforce policies and controls to prevent or restrict the simultaneous connection to other networks when using a VPN solution. VPN bandwidth is not an activity that would present a significant security risk to organizations when employing a VPN solution, although it may be a factor that affects the performance and availability of the VPN solution. VPN bandwidth is the amount of data that can be transmitted or received over the VPN tunnel per unit of time, which depends on the speed and capacity of the network connection, the encryption and compression methods, the traffic load, and the network congestion. VPN bandwidth may limit the quality and efficiency of the data and communication that are transmitted over the VPN tunnel, but it does not directly pose a significant security risk to the organization’s private network. Users with IP addressing conflicts is not an activity that would present a significant security risk to organizations when employing a VPN solution, although it may be a factor that causes errors and disruptions in the VPN solution. IP addressing conflicts occur when two or more devices or hosts on the same network have the same IP address, which is a unique identifier that is assigned to each device or host to communicate over the network.
