Securing Extranet Connections

Doing business today not only means having all your internal systems connected, but it also means having external data connections to many of your business partners and customers. For smaller companies this may mean one or two private connections to other companies. For larger companies the number of external connections can grow rapidly. And for companies that rely on these external connections as an integral part of their business, the number can be in the hundreds. This paper will present one solution to securing a large number of extranet connections. In particular, the focus will be on the corporation who is the extranet network provider, or at the hub of a large extranet. The extranet network provider's responsibility for security is not only between it and its business partners and customers, but also making sure that partner A can't access systems at customer B (unless specifically requested).