Site Security Planning

Threats from Outside

Intranets use Internet technologies, such as e-mail and Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP), in order to provide corporate resources to employees. Because these technologies are based on the TCP/IP suite of protocols, intranets give employees easy access to corporate information resources via the Internet, from wherever they might happen to be: at home, on a business partner’s site, or in a distant city.

One result of this access is that employees send identification and authentication data as well as other sensitive business information over public networks, as they take care of business from remote locations. When the logon and authentication communication is not secured by encryption, amateur programmers working outside the corporation can intercept and use this sensitive information against the company intranet.