IPSec Security Overview

IPSec is a framework of several open standards that provides data confidentiality, data integrity, and data authentication in exchanges between participating VPN peers at Layer 3. IPSec technologies can be used to authenticate and protect data flows between IPSec peers. The two main IPSec security protocols are the following:

• Authentication Header (AH)

• Encapsulating Security Payload (ESP)

In addition, IPSec uses other existing encryption standards to complete the protocol suite. These encryption standards are covered in the section “Other IPSec Encryption Standards.”