What is Tunneling?

Understanding Tunneling

The process of encapsulating one network protocol within another. Tunneling is a technique that encapsulates one protocol within another protocol creating a secure or functional pathway across networks that might otherwise block or not support the original protocol. Tunneling can be used legitimately for VPNs remote access and IPv6 transition but can also be misused to bypass security controls. Tunneling technologies are defined in standards like various IETF RFCs and addressed in security frameworks. Organizations implement legitimate tunneling through VPN solutions secure remote access remote site connectivity and transition technologies while monitoring for unauthorized tunneling. For example a global corporation might implement IPsec tunneling to securely connect branch offices over the public internet encapsulating internal network traffic within encrypted packets while simultaneously monitoring for unauthorized tunneling that might indicate data exfiltration attempts or security policy violations. Related terms VPN Encapsulation Protocol encapsulation IPsec SSH tunnel GRE tunnel SSL/TLS tunneling Data exfiltration DNS tunneling Protocol 41 IPv6 transition.