Native WireGuard® Clients and VNS3 6.0 Beta2

Native WireGuard® Clients and VNS3 6.0 Beta2

by | Jun 14, 2022 | AWS, Azure, News, Security, Tutorials, VNS3 Features

VNS3 6.0 Beta2 is now available.

You can find the Free edition in both the Amazon and Azure marketplaces (GCP coming soon).

It is an easy way to get a server up and running that can connect you to data centers, cloud VPCs/VNETs, has a super firewall, straightforward support of even difficult things like “source based routing”, and most of all a quick way to run and manage your own WireGuard® network connecting multiple people, devices, or both.

This post will show you how to use the standard Mac Appstore WireGuard client built and delivered by the WireGuard team with Cohesive Networks VNS3 6.0 network controllers. (Of course similar capability is available using the same app from the Windows/iPhone/Android “app stores” as well.)

In future posts we will show the Cohesive CLI (cnvpn) at work, and the Cohesive WG GUI working with VNS3 6.0. And then we will follow up by showing how the different connection options work with a distributed VPN cluster where you can spread a VNS3 controller mesh across regions and clouds with ease, yet have a unified VPN system for management of credentials, pre-shared keys, OIDC sessions and more.

In the screen shots throughout we have three windows; upper left the Mac OS WG client, bottom left a command line from the same Mac, and to the right the cloud-based VNS3 server supporting a wide range of cloud networking use-cases, and here specifically WireGuard VPN connections.

VNS3 Network Platform has the concept of “clientpacks” – basically the credentials needed to connect a machine or a person via a VPN client to the network.  Historically they have been “openvpn” by default – and starting in 6.0 they are WireGuard by default. In a future release we will support a dual stack with both “ovpn” and “wg” connections simultaneously, and a goal of IPsec clients as well.

In the picture above and those below we see the “Clientpacks” page. From here you can perform key administrative functions like disabling addresses, re-generating credentials, updating pre-shared keys, and getting access URLs for secure and easy distribution of VPN credentials.

Above shows the results of choosing “Access URL” and displaying its result. This is a secure, one-time, timed URL which allows users to copy/paste the clientpack, download it for import, or for mobile clients use a QR code for import.

It has all the necessary information to make a connection using the standard WG Client – with or without PSKs.

There is also a series of commented lines which are used by CNVPN CLI and GUI for additional enterprise support (failover, dynamic route updates, OIDC authentication) to be discussed in future. For now we just want to focus on how easy it is to connect native WG clients.

Copy/paste the clientpack into the Mac OS client, and click SAVE/ACTIVATE.

Voilà – you are connected to the VPN.  The VNS3 Clientpacks page shows the status as “connected”.

The WG Client now shows its statistics about the connection, and below we are pinging the VNS3 controller’s VPN address to show access to the VPN network.

(By default, this connection can access other addresses on the VPN. If that’s not desired it is easily changed via the Firewall page.)  

If needed you can use the Action menu to perform administrative operations.   For example, if you select “Disable” on the connection, the client is dropped from the VPN.  Below, we see the client set to disabled state by the Admin, and we see the “pings” begin to fail.

Then we “Enable” – and the client is back on the network and packets begin to flow.

And of course similar operations can be performed to re-new or re-secure a connection by adding a PSK or re-generating keys – both of which require the clientpack to be redistributed to the user or device.  But as expected, when you enable a PSK for the connection, the user is unable to access the network.  With the credential re-deployed with the appropriate clientpack containing the PSK, they are back on the net!

Accessing the other devices on the VPN network is one use, what about getting to the Internet?

This requires a couple configuration elements on the client side which requires a little bit of operating system knowledge on the client side and a of couple firewall rules on the VNS3 Controller.  We won’t go into those specifics here.

But, if you look at the Cohesive-specific directives used by the CNVPN CLI and GUI – one of them is “TunnelAllTraffic” – and when this is set to “true” – all the client side magic is done for you!  But that is for another day.

(“WireGuard” and the “WireGuard” logo are registered trademarks of Jason A. Donenfeld.)

 

Announcing Successful Type 2 Soc 2 Examination

Announcing Successful Type 2 Soc 2 Examination

by | Jun 7, 2022 | News, Security

We’re happy to announce that Cohesive Networks has successfully completed a Type 2 SOC 2 examination. The examination confirmed that our systems are protected against unauthorized access, unauthorized disclosure of information, and damage to systems that could compromise the availability, integrity, confidentiality, and privacy of information or systems. 

Examination Details

  • Selected SOC 2 Categories:  Security
  • Examination Type:  Type 2
  • Review Period:  November 1, 2021, to April 30, 2022
  • Service Auditor:  Schellman & Company, LLC

Our Secure History

Security and privacy are at the core of our business model and part of our culture. Cohesive Networks was spun out in 2014 from Cohesive Flexible Technologies in part due to a realization we were no longer in the cloud migration business. We were in fact a security and networking company. As a result we had the opportunity and experience to create internal systems and controls to a high standard. All are still overbuilt by today’s measure.

By design, we have no access to customers’ VNS3 provided networks. Access and visibility are completely in the hands of the owner. Given that deployment mode, VNS3 has mechanisms to ensure limited attack surface with no backdoor access: Access URLs and API Tokens.

We also “eat our own cooking.” VNS3 was created by our parent company, Cohesive Flexible Technologies back in 2008.  The purpose was first to secure our Elastic Server product cluster (see Bill-of-Materials approach to virtual machine image creation) and second to provide IP address control and security for the wild west EC2-classic 10/8 network space of the day. Our company runs internal Overlay Networks for our production systems, support engineers, as well as PeopleVPN for our remote/post-geographic team.

Future Plans

Cohesive Networks is committed to continuing annual Type 2 SOC 2 examinations and will plan on adding Availability and Privacy Trust Service categories in the future. Additionally we’ll be evaluating if a SOC 3 examination is more appropriate given our role as a provider of critical network infrastructure for our globally distributed customer base.

The Enterprise and WireGuard

The Enterprise and WireGuard

by | Apr 28, 2022 | Connectivity, Network Architecture, Network Edge Plugins, Security

WireGuard® at its core is a lightweight, low code, VPN tunneling protocol that optimizes for speed, security and ease of configuration. However, extended business functions needed for enterprise usage are left out of its code base by design. This non-opinionated approach allows third parties to develop novel methods that best fit enterprise needs and styles.

Examples of Enterprise needs are:

  • Key (re)generation and distribution for both human users and machine-to-machine networks
  • RESTful API for integration to in-house systems and external services
  • Uniform access to encrypted tunneling via regional or global clusters
  • Dynamic routing so devices on the WireGuard network learn about network paths as they come and go
  • Failover support allowing clients to migrate servers in the event of maintenance or outages
  • Integration to security platforms (Firewalls, WAFs, IDS/IPS)
  • Integration to other “tunneled” paths (IPsec, GRE, VXLAN, cloud direct connects, etc..)
  • Integration to “legacy” monitoring tools like SNMP
  • Integration to “modern” monitoring tools like Datadog and Sumologic
  • Integration to legacy authentication (Active Directory)
  • Integration to modern authentication (OAuth / OpenID, MFA, etc..)
  • AND more!

Cohesive is working to make the WireGuard protocol a first order citizen in our VNS3 Network Platform with a focus on many of these extended capabilities.

Enterprises will need methods to securely store and distribute keys to human and machines. Authenticated REST APIs allow automation frameworks to tag and place keys where needed in a distributed computing environment. Self-service web portals give end users access to allocated keys for their various devices. Administrators and intrusion detection systems need the ability to revoke keys when compromise occurs.

Not all tunneling systems and their keys are the same. Many companies employ encrypted overlay networks, in cloud and between their compute nodes in order to satisfy regulatory requirements and gain network visibility. For automated machine-to-machine communications, public/private key pairs are all that is required, whereas with “people VPN” scenarios added authentication factors are needed.

In the dynamic world of cloud networking and remote work, private networks are now fluid, meaning that network address ranges are added and removed, as new networks and subnets come on line or are decommissioned. In order for systems to communicate they need dynamic route updates providing up-to-date paths through interconnected transit networks.

These encrypted tunneling systems are used to take the enterprise, its customer and partners to, through, and across clouds. This requires the WireGuard feature called “Allowed IPs” that acts as both ACL and route directives to be integrated. In Enterprise WireGuard use-cases, the “Allowed IPs” don’t come from a configuration file, they will be dynamically and seamlessly integrated to the broader systems routing and ACL policies. communications in the enterprise. Companies need the ability to filter and direct traffic at ingress and egress points in cloud networks.

WireGuard is fast becoming an essential operating system and developer tool, and Cohesive Networks believes it’s on its way to being an essential building block for creating robust, enterprise-ready network solutions.

“WireGuard” and the “WireGuard” logo are registered trademarks of Jason A. Donenfeld.

WireGuard: A Quick Overview

WireGuard: A Quick Overview

by | Apr 7, 2022 | Connectivity, Networking Fundamentals, Security, VPN

Image courtesy of wireguard.com.

WireGuard® is a new communication protocol that implements encrypted virtual private networks (VPN). It endeavors to provide network agility, advanced security, performance, and configuration simplicity. Back in 2017 Jason A. Donenfeld, a security researcher and Linux kernel developer, was looking for a stealthy traffic tunneling solution for use in penetration testing jobs. In an interview on the Security. Cryptography. Whatever. podcast, Donenfeld explains that while he was “familiar with OpenVPN and IPSec” he was well aware of the bugs these solutions carried with them. Thus, he set out to create something new for himself that would not suffer from historical technical debt.

IPSec, one of the major VPN options available today, was born in 1992 with the Internet Engineering Task Force’s formation of the IP Security Working group, and was standardized in 1995 under RFC-1825 and RFC-1827. IPSec has always required a tremendous amount of configuration unique to the hardware and software environments it will then connect. The encryption, key exchange, and authentication algorithms that it supports are overly broad, in order to support legacy equipment. The key exchange mechanism can be prone to rekeying issues, causing stability problems. This is not to say that IPSec should be avoided, but to point to the non-triviality of its implementation. If you consider using IPSec as a vehicle for remote worker VPN connections (“people VPN” or “road warrior VPN”), there are security concerns as simple as an “aggressive mode” sending a hash of pre-shared keys in plain text.

Another option, OpenVPN, was initially released in 2001 by James Yonan. It uses Secure Socket Layer (SSL) and Transport Layer Security (TLS) to provide encryption. OpenVPN is currently the most widely used VPN protocol on the planet, to the extent that some might consider it the backbone of modern online security. Along with trusted encryption, OpenVPN also supports a wide range of algorithms for encryption and authentication, hashing, and key derivation, making it highly adaptable to different deployments. It also uses certificates for identification and encryption and it can operate on UDP or TCP.

This brings us back to the steady emergence of WireGuard. In January of 2020 Linus Torvalds merged David Miller’s “net-next” tree into the Linux kernel, bringing WireGuard into the mainline Linux kernel tree. WireGuard was written to be efficient and easily readable; it is comprised of around 4,000 lines of code, which is much fewer lines of code than OpenVPN relies on. Among other benefits, this smaller size makes WireGuard auditable in an afternoon (or so) and the condensed code significantly reduces the attack surface. The goal is to keep WireGuard slimmed down to its basic operational function; a simplified and performant VPN. It is left to third parties to extend it to meet various functional business requirements.

While IPSec and OpenVPN provide a plethora of algorithmic options, WireGuard limits the need for user choice and customization in favor of fast, modern cryptographic primitives that don’t rely on hardware accelerators. This greatly removes the possibility of user miscalculation and thus insecure or improper deployments. Many connectivity vulnerabilities are caused by the combination of primitives, not always the primitives themselves. WireGuard endeavors to combine known, secure, and performant primitives, and allows you to negotiate protocol versions to easily address future vulnerabilities.

WireGuard operates much like OpenSSH in terms of public and private keys. Peers identify themselves with a unique public keys which are is used to establish their IP inside of the tunnel. WireGuard calls this concept “cryptokey routing”. This simplification of tunnel configuration is a major advantage of WireGuard. Performance is another major factor of WireGuard’s appeal. OpenVPN adds about 20% data overhead while IPSec adds around 10%, but WireGuard uses a mere 4% more data than an unencrypted connection. Most tests even show WireGuard performing around twice as fast as OpenVPN, with WireGuard operating near to or close to line speed. Another key factor to the speed of connectivity is where WireGuard operates in the operating system. On Linux, WireGuard operates in kernel space, where packets are processed at a much faster rate. However, on Windows this is not the case, so the WireGuard group has developed a very simple and minimal TUN driver, Wintun, for the Windows kernel that shuttles packets to the Windows User Space. We can probably expect WireGuardNT (LINK) to move into the Windows kernel space in the future.

Back to the cryptokey routing table. The “cryptokey routing” concept developed by WireGuard allows changes to external source IPs to be picked up and propagated quickly and efficiency. Whether you are a roaming client that is switching between cellular and wifi, or a client that needs to ‘fail over’ to a backup server, the cryptokey routing table gets updated in mere seconds with the new IPs of the tunnel. In comparison, OpenVPN can take 30 seconds to reestablish new IP connections, which is only slightly slower than the time it takes IPSec connections using BGP routing to reestablish similar connections. The WireGuard protocol provides additional security in that it does not respond to packets from non peers nor unauthenticated packets, leaving WireGuard mostly invisible to non-peers.

In conclusion, it appears WireGuard aims to keep its code base small, be easy to implement and audit, all while having blazingly fast performance using state-of-the-art cryptography.

“WireGuard” and the “WireGuard” logo are registered trademarks of Jason A. Donenfeld.

News Roundup: Week of Feb 21, 2022

News Roundup: Week of Feb 21, 2022

by | Feb 24, 2022 | Connectivity, Network Architecture, News, Public Clouds, Security

U.S. Cyber Officials Issue Official Warning Against Potential Russian Cyber Attacks

During a call this Monday, FBI and DHS cyber officials urged government agencies “to look out for signs of Russian activity on their networks” as a result of the evolving Ukraine crisis. According to Yahoo: “federal officials also urged those on the call to dramatically lower their threshold for reporting suspicious activity.” Citing “an uptick in Russian scanning of U.S. law enforcement networks” as well as “in Russian disinformation and misinformation about Ukraine,” cyber officials urge increased care and caution with links and communications as the crisis progresses.

IBM Opens Cyber Security Hub in India

IBM recently announced the opening of their first IBM Security Command Center in the Asia Pacific region. The center hopes to provide a cybersecurity incident response plan for enterprise customers with deployments in the region, as well as “a fully immersive, interactive, and experiential learning facility.” IBM plans to use simulations and experiential training to help enterprises protect themselves from cyberattacks. IBM promises that by co-locating this training center with their X-Force Command Center, IBM’s Security Operations Center, both live practice and training for cyber security precautions will benefit immensely.

Microsoft Brings Cloud Security to GCP

Yesterday Microsoft announced the release of Microsoft Defender for Cloud for Google Cloud Platform, making Microsoft the first major cloud provider to offer security solutions in all major cloud platforms. The offering from Microsoft boasts Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) and Cloud Workload Protection (CWP) across both containers and servers. According to the release, GCP deployments of Microsoft Defender for Cloud will come “with out-of-box recommendations that allow you to configure GCP environments in line with key security standards like the Center for Internet Security (CIS).” Microsoft is also emphasizing the necessity of Zero Trust Management and event log management in cloud environments with two more ‘upgraded’ cloud security offerings.

Distributed Hybrid MultiCloud Mesh with VNS3 and LNKe

Distributed Hybrid MultiCloud Mesh with VNS3 and LNKe

by | Feb 3, 2022 | AWS, Azure, Network Architecture, Networking Fundamentals, Public Clouds, Security, VNS3 Features

As cloud adoption continues to ramp up in 2022, with Gartner projecting another 21.7% growth in cloud spend this year, companies are maturing beyond their initial workload migrations to single cloud vendors. Whether to create resiliency due to the now not so uncommon major outages we have seen in the past few years, to tailor their many application environments to changing business requirements, or to migrate to new cloud vendors whose offering is the best fit. However, in order to realize these opportunities, companies need a consistent network layer that is uncoupled from any one cloud vendors specific dependancies. No matter which cloud you choose, achieving this goal requires utilizing third party network solutions. Such a solution should ideally facilitate connectivity to data-centers, remote users, and IOT devices as well.

Cohesive Networks VNS3 cloud edge security controllers can create the backbone across all of your public cloud vendors in an easy to manage and secure mesh, with LNKe connecting all of your virtual private networks. This gives you a fully transitive network across all of your cloud real estate, running at performative speeds with built in failover and self healing mesh capabilities. Granular IPSec cloud edge configurations allow you to connect corporate data centers, partner networks and vendor access, regardless of their hardware. Policy enforcement is consistent across the network and has been simplified for ease of management. With our comprehensive firewall you can easily define people, groups and network objects to allow your remote workforce to securely connect at the edge closest to their physical location. In short, with VNS3 and LNKe, you can create a full network mesh consistent with your needs that can grow to anywhere that you need to be and scale with your deploments.

Please reach out to the Cohesive Networks sales and solutions team at contactme@www.cohesive.net to further the discussion with any interests that you may have. We are always happy to help.