ABSTRACT
In the past decade, the problem of establishing and controlling remote access to corporate networks has
become one of the most difficult issues facing network administrators and information security
professionals. As information-based businesses become a larger and larger fraction of the global
economy, the nature of “business” itself changes. “Work” used to take place in a well-defined
location-such as a factory, an office, or a store-at well-defined times, between relatively organized
hierarchies of employees. But now, “work” happens everywhere: all over the world, around the clock,
between employees, consultants, vendors, and customer representatives. An employee can be productive
working with a personal computer and a modem in his living room, without an assembly line, a filing
cabinet, or a manager in sight.
