Analogy: VPNs Securely Connect IsLANds

Your network (LAN) is an island of sanity, order, and user services in an unpredictable ocean known as the Internet. You know thousands of other islands exist within this ocean; when you want to travel from island to island, you would hop on a ferry and travel to the next island that just also happens to be that website or the latest smartphone you had your eye on.

Now, you are on this ferry (using TCP/IP) traveling over the ocean (Internet) to reach something on an island (LAN) that is going to provide you with some sort of service (website). This makes perfect sense, right? Now, how many other people do you see on that ferry—perhaps a few, or perhaps many thousands? The potential problem is that you have no security or privacy traveling from island to island; other people can see everything you see. Now, if you were reading the latest news on www.foxnews.com, who cares if you do not have privacy? However, if you were going to your company’s island to check on something, this lack of privacy can have serious ramifications. Do you want anyone looking over your shoulder as you put in your credit card number to make a purchase or to upload the latest sales figures to the corporate server?