I’ve been playing with VPNs and network security lately, and I’ve made an interesting discovery tonight. I plan on adding to this and digging into what is going on. For now, I just want to post the results:
No VPN
GRC Port Authority Report created on UTC: 2016-09-29 at 02:55:19
Results from scan of ports: 0, 21-23, 25, 79, 80, 110, 113,
119, 135, 139, 143, 389, 443, 445,
1002, 1024-1030, 1720, 5000
0 Ports Open
0 Ports Closed
26 Ports Stealth
———————
26 Ports Tested
ALL PORTS tested were found to be: STEALTH.
TruStealth: PASSED – ALL tested ports were STEALTH,
– NO unsolicited packets were received,
– NO Ping reply (ICMP Echo) was received.
With VPN
GRC Port Authority Report created on UTC: 2016-09-29 at 02:55:33
Results from scan of ports: 0, 21-23, 25, 79, 80, 110, 113,
119, 135, 139, 143, 389, 443, 445,
1002, 1024-1030, 1720, 5000
3 Ports Open
0 Ports Closed
23 Ports Stealth
———————
26 Ports Tested
NO PORTS were found to be CLOSED.
Ports found to be OPEN were: 22, 80, 443
Other than what is listed above, all ports are STEALTH.
TruStealth: FAILED – NOT all tested ports were STEALTH,
– NO unsolicited packets were received,
– A PING REPLY (ICMP Echo) WAS RECEIVED.
The ports that are open with the VPN enabled aren’t serious security breaches, and they are common ports. However, in this case, the non-VPN connection is the more secure connection. We will look at this in more detail later, as I said, I just wanted to get results posted.