Last updated on March 21, 2023
Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for VPN is a way to add an extra layer of protection to VPN logins to prevent hackers from accessing your account even if they know your username and password. VPN MFA protects logins with multiple layers, requiring you to pass them all to gain access.
The Challenge of VPN Security
Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) allow remote employees to securely access a company’s private network and gain access to internal resources through the public internet. While VPNs use encryption algorithms to secure connections, unauthorized actors can still access the corporate network if they learn the username and password of just one user. Naturally, attacks do not stop after cybercriminals access a corporate network. Usually, they try to gain privileged access and laterally move to other systems, servers, and applications. Alternatively, hackers can encrypt critical files with ransomware and demand a ransom for a decryption key. Needless to say, MFA-less VPN creates a dangerous situation in which the safety of your entire company depends solely on whether the user credentials of one of your users have been compromised.
Username and password can leak during the latest data breach. Or hackers can get them through phishing, including a sophisticated spear-phishing attack. In fact, cybercriminals target poorly-secured VPN accounts to find a way into your corporate resources. There are many ways malicious actors can exploit the vulnerabilities of VPNs to compromise an account. But most of these ways have a common denominator: a password.
How Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) Secures Your VPN
Multi-Factor Authentication enhances your primary authentication with an extra layer of security. An overwhelming majority of VPNs use login and password as the primary authentication to validate the user’s identity. MFA adds a secondary authentication method that involves something you have or something you are. For example, a mobile notification sent to your mobile device is something you have. This is because you have a phone with an authenticator app installed on the phone. Something you are involves biometric authentication, such as your fingerprint.
Thanks to enabling VPN MFA on all accounts, password-based unauthorized access is no longer possible because the secure second authentication factor thwarts hackers from accessing the account. MFA prompts users for a second authentication factor before granting access, thus blocking all attempts at gaining access to an account with just the correct password. Overall, VPN MFA significantly improves your security posture, strengthens your resilience, and stops cybercriminals before they access your corporate network.
5 Reasons Why Protect Your VPN With MFA
The most important reasons why you should enable VPN MFA on all accounts are:
- To protect against cyberattacks
- To enforce access policies
- To ensure consistency across the organization
- To achieve regulatory compliance
- To gain visibility into all devices
1. To protect against cyberattacks
The last few years saw a massive wave of remote workers. What followed was a burgeoning rise of credential theft. Arguably, secure remote access to data is more critical than ever. Frequent data breaches and cyberattacks on passwords show that companies need to enable Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) on all accounts without exceptions. Unfortunately, every service you can access by entering the correct username and password is vulnerable to credential theft. VPNs are not exempt from that risk. Even more so, every person is susceptible to sophisticated phishing schemes that cheat people into disclosing confidential information such as login and password. To protect against these cyberattacks, companies must enable MFA for VPN for all users. Only then can they successfully protect users from cyberattacks targeting user credentials.
2. To enforce access policies
Access policies are a part of an Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication (AMFA) paradigm. The point of Adaptive Authentication is simple: To modify the way users authenticate based on predefined policies and external circumstances. Examples of policies in Adaptive Multi-Factor Authentication include but are not limited to:
- Limiting user access based on the time of the day.
- Bypassing or blocking users who access from a given IP address range.
- Enforcing which authentication methods users can use.
- Allowing users to add trusted devices.
Any modern Multi-Factor Authentication solution is highly flexible and allows administrators to create and assign access policies to applications, VPNs, and services. Adaptability to the changing security landscape is an imperative yet often overlooked aspect of Multi-Factor Authentication.
3. To ensure consistency across the organization
The VPN is most likely not the only thing that users access in your organization. A modern company has tons of applications, VPNs, Remote Desktops, and other services that users access on a daily basis. All these resources need to be consolidated and maintained. This takes time. And time is money. Since VPN is not the only vector of attack in cyber incidents, you need to deploy Multi-Factor Authentication for all your users across all applications. It would not be such a bad idea to centralize identity management so that administrators could create a single user account with a set of credentials that the user would use to access all these services.
Summing up, you need MFA for VPN and cloud apps, on-premises applications, and remote desktop connections. Plus, you need a centralized identity provider. Maybe you already have an identity provider. Active Directory is one example of an identity provider. But do all your users use their Active Directory credentials to log in to your VPN and cloud apps? If the answer is no, then the follow-up question you ask is probably how can I achieve that. And the answer is Multi-Factor Authentication. Best MFA solutions allow you to centralize and consolidate your users’ logins by pulling user information for primary authentication from a centralized identity provider such as Active Directory, OpenLDAP, or a RADIUS server. This ensures a streamlined and consistent login experience for your users.
4. To achieve regulatory compliance
Enabling VPN MFA helps you meet NIST SP 800-63B, HIPAA, GDPR, NYCRR, PCI DSS, FFIEC, and other regulatory requirements. Each industry has a set of regulatory requirements that are mandatory for that industry. For example, Healthcare must comply with The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA). Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) is also a spelled-out requirement for PCI DSS. MFA must be at least 2FA (and not 2SA). To achieve regulatory compliance, some industries must not only deploy MFA but also ensure that all authentication methods are not interconnected. Naturally, that is what a VPN MFA provider should offer. Hence, choosing the right VPN MFA provider for your unique business needs is essential.
5. To gain visibility into your user logins
Enabling VPN MFA gives you visibility into what is happening in your company. Sophisticated Multi-Factor Authentication solutions (like Rublon) allow you to view all devices your users use to log in to the VPN. These devices include mobile phones and tablets, both company-owned and users’ own. This is especially important for companies that implement the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) policy and allow users to use their personal devices for work. Good visibility into what devices your users log in from helps you better administer your infrastructure and increase your security posture.
Further, most MFA solutions (including Rublon) collect information on users’ logins called authentication logs. Authentication logs save all successful and failed login attempts, creating a record of the login experience in your company. Logs help administrators identify security incidents, fraudulent activity, and policy violations. Some industry regulations require both complete visibility into devices and storing logs. For example, maintaining logs is mandatory to comply with PCI DSS and HIPAA.
How do I enable VPN MFA?
- Find MFA providers whose MFA solutions fulfill your needs.
- Ask them for details, including the price, available features, and a Free Trial.
- Start a Free Trial and deploy MFA on your VPN for all your users.
- Buy the MFA solution if you like it.
Get Rublon MFA for VPN
Rublon’s VPN MFA provides secure remote access to internal corporate applications using cutting-edge Multi-Factor Authentication applicable to all VPNs that support the RADIUS protocol. Consequently, Rublon VPN MFA supports virtually all major VPN and remote access software providers:
Rublon supports every router compatible with RADIUS or SAML. Take a look at the following article for a list of the most common routers supported by Rublon.
Which routers are compatible with Rublon MFA?
Free VPN MFA Trial
Get 30 days of Free Rublon MFA for an unlimited number of users by signing up for a Rublon Trial.
