What Is VPN?

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, creates a secure, encrypted connection between a user's device and a private network — typically your business network. When an employee connects to your company VPN from home, a coffee shop, or a hotel, their internet traffic is encrypted and routed through your business network, giving them secure access to internal resources like file servers, line-of-business applications, and intranet sites. To the rest of the internet, their traffic appears to originate from your business, not from whatever public network they're physically connected to.

VPNs serve two critical functions for businesses. First, they enable secure remote work by encrypting data in transit. Without a VPN, an employee working from a public Wi-Fi network is sending data in a form that can be intercepted by anyone on the same network. With a VPN, that data is encrypted before it leaves their device, making interception useless. Second, VPNs provide controlled access to internal resources — employees can reach file shares, databases, and applications that are only accessible from inside the network, without those resources being exposed to the public internet.

Modern business VPN solutions have evolved beyond traditional point-to-point tunnels. Many organizations now use cloud-based VPN services or zero-trust network access (ZTNA) solutions that provide more granular access control — verifying not just who the user is, but what device they're using, whether it meets security requirements, and what specific resources they should be allowed to access. For most small and mid-sized businesses, a properly configured VPN remains one of the most practical and cost-effective ways to enable secure remote work.