VPN - Hardware or Software

Most people have no idea what a Virtual Private Network does, why or how:

I have use VPN's for years in medical office setups and I am often asked "why, how, and what make your work fast and secure when others are not. So much so we have had software vendors pay our Client's to reverse engineer our setups. We were not happy when we discovered their scans but quickly found out how really little they understood what they were selling and talking about with VPN.

    
My Company has always installed "Hardware" VPN's protected by firewalls that is configured only to talk to each other and reject all other traffic making it nearly "hack proof" as the IP involved are private and limited. Because this in a closed loop, all machines appear local between the offices connected. This eliminates the compression overhead and reduces system encryption drag at the servers and workstations. This has never been hacked only broken with hacked MSP (Managed Service Providers) who attempt to hijack the LANs. This did nothing except disrupt the connection with no loss of data.
  • A lot of the functions of hardware VPN are attractive to big businesses want the best speed and security:

    Allows for remote access to company’s intranet
    Adding more VPN tunnels for more bandwidth
    Dedicated IP addresses
    Powerful firewalls
    No data is going through third-party VPN servers, ensuring an additional layer of security
    Quickly securing the entire office by installing a single device used to connect everything.
    
What most use is a "Software VPN" that requires system recourses to connect, encrypt, and secure. This is easy to setup, but it is also easy to break, and requires a great deal of processor time. Worse.. software vpn's are harder to secure and much easier to hack into as all a bad guy has to do it capture your "VPN Key" and they are in (in most cases).
  • Software VPN provides many incentives for small businesses and individual users - It's Cheap!:

    An economical intranet replacement for those who use online solutions for data storage and sharing
    somewhat securing connections when traveling
    Overcoming geo-blocking via access to multiple VPN servers
    Easy and fast deployment by untrained users
    Often allows securing of a home/office via installing VPN on an existing router
     
    
Ref:

https://securityboulevard.com/2020/05/7-common-vpn-problems-the-not-so-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-2/

https://surfshark.com/blog/hardware-vpn

https://www.shellfire.net/blog/vpn-hardware/

https://www.zdnet.com/article/us-secret-service-reports-an-increase-in-hacked-managed-service-providers-msps/