CSGW-RAS: A novel secure solution for remote access based on SSL

Abstract

A novel secure solution for remote access is proposed. Compared with the previous methods such as dial-up and vpn, our solution CSGW-RAS is quite new at using SSL for data transfer and GNU/Linux pseudo network device for data forward. It offers two important types of properties. One is security, which includes confidentiality, IP assigning and authentication, etc. We compare CSGW-RAS with IPSec VPN which is widely-used for its high security, by using a security risk index. The results shows that our solution is as secure as IPSec VPN. The other is simplicity. CSGW-RAS completely throws away the complexity both in deployment and in operation but is different with the so-called SSL VPN which is just a Web proxy. The security and performance analysis show that our solution is quite secure and easy-to-use with a little lost in efficiency which results from the handshake process but would not affect its whole performance.