January 2022 Summaries

Twingate Starter offers a simple, secure, and free solution for accessing devices and apps on home networks while away from home. Unlike common approaches, Twingate remote access does not require setting up a VPN, port forwarding, static IP addresses, or configuring DDNS. With a free account, users can easily configure secure remote access to various devices and servers, including those with different operating systems, and unlock simple, secure, and free remote access to a variety of apps and use cases. Twingate Starter is designed for home and personal use and allows users to create a unique identifier for their network, deploy the Twingate Connector on devices, and add a remote network and resources as needed. The solution also enables easy sharing of access with family members and provides rapid implementation of modern Zero Trust networks compared to VPNs.

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released a Zero Trust strategy for the US federal government, aiming to move towards a more secure digital transformation by 2024. The strategy emphasizes identity-first networking, continuous authentication, and verification, as well as making applications internet-accessible. OMB defines Zero Trust as verifying access attempts rather than relying on traditional trust models. The plan requires agencies to select a point of contact, deliver a plan, and implement changes within the next year. This shift is expected to push agencies towards adopting Identity and Access Management (IAM), Identity Provider (IdP), and Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) models, replacing dated concepts like VPNs. As agencies move towards Zero Trust adoption, private organizations are likely to follow suit, with NIST offering threat intel and threat response models widely accepted by the industry. The strategy aligns with the White House's Executive Order on Improving the Nation's Cybersecurity and builds upon CISA's existing Zero Trust maturity model and resources.

OpenVPN is a twenty-year-old protocol for delivering remote access to protected networks, which has been widely adopted by consumer and commercial VPN providers. However, it suffers from weaknesses inherent to all VPN technologies, such as public visibility and network access, making it less secure, difficult to manage, and harder to scale in today's distributed, cloud-enabled networking ecosystem. In contrast, Twingate's modern Zero Trust security solution offers a more secure, performant, easier-to-use, and more responsive approach, eliminating the burden and friction of legacy technologies like OpenVPN by consolidating control of access to all resources within a single system. Twingate enhances security beyond access control with additional capabilities such as universal 2-factor authentication, device restrictions, activity logging, and DNS filtering, making it an attractive alternative for organizations looking to improve their security, performance, and usability.

A network-attached storage device (NAS) is a great way to backup files or an entire computer, and it can also be used as a media server. However, accessing a NAS when out and about can be cumbersome and insecure. Twingate Starter offers a simple, secure, and free solution for remote access to Synology NAS devices. It does not require setting up a VPN, port forwarding, static IP addresses, or configuring DDNS. The process involves signing up for a Twingate account, deploying the Twingate Connector on the NAS device via Docker, generating tokens for the Connector, and adding a Resource to enable remote access. With Twingate, users can securely access their NAS devices from anywhere, stream photos, music, or videos, monitor camera footage, and use their NAS as a file server. The solution is easy to set up and maintain, making it ideal for home and personal use.

Twingate Starter offers a simple, secure, and free solution for remote access to Raspberry Pi + Home Assistant. It does not require setting up a VPN, port forwarding, static IP addresses, or configuring DDNS. The solution involves deploying a Connector on the Raspberry Pi, which enables remote access to any device or service on the home network. Users can sign up for a Twingate Starter account and follow a quick start guide to set up the solution. The solution is designed for home and personal use and supports multiple distributions of Linux. It also has apps for iOS and Android and allows users to share access with family members.

Mesh VPNs are an alternative to traditional hub-and-spoke VPN topologies, offering a distributed, peer-to-peer topology that creates direct, secure connections between any two member nodes. However, mesh VPNs add complexity and struggle to scale, while also introducing new issues such as node addresses requiring unique IP addresses across all networks and increased administrative overhead. In contrast, Zero Trust-based solutions like Twingate provide more efficient and performant access to resources while improving a company's security posture, with features such as deployment coexistence with network infrastructure, manageability through lightweight Connector software, security stack integration with major identity providers, device posture policies based on operating system version and antivirus status, and indexed activity logs for detecting potential attacks. Twingate's Zero Trust-based approach reduces friction businesses experience on the path to Zero Trust Network Access, making it easier to implement a modern secure network solution.

Private DNS is a technology that assigns text-based names to networked resources, allowing users and systems to rely on IP addresses instead of traditional domain names. This enables easier management of network administration and improves user experience by caching frequently visited websites. Private DNS servers are managed within an organization's internal network perimeter, providing more control over network usage and security. However, public DNS has security flaws that make it vulnerable to cyberattacks, with 87% of organizations experiencing more than seven DNS attacks per year. Twingate's Zero Trust solution uses software-defined perimeters and transparent proxies to protect private DNS infrastructure from hackers, reducing the attack surface and improving overall network security.

TwinGate has designed a network architecture that separates its three primary concepts into separate layers to optimize for performance, security controls, and ease of deployment. The distributed network architecture uses private proxies to provide the best set of tradeoffs between security and flexibility. NAT traversal is used to create peer-to-peer connections between clients and resources to minimize latency. Relaying infrastructure is available as a backup transport method when NAT traversal is not possible. Twingate automatically prioritizes the lowest latency transport option that's available between peers. QUIC, a new transport layer network protocol, has been introduced into Twingate's peer-to-peer connections, offering faster connection establishment, greater tolerance to network changes, and more effective traffic management of multiple concurrent data streams.

Twingate has earned 18 G2 awards across four categories, including Easiest to Use solution, fastest time to value or ROI, best support, and best results overall. Customers have praised Twingate for its ease of use, transparency, and simplicity in deploying and managing secure access solutions. The company's mission of making Zero Trust easy to adopt and implement has resonated with customers, who appreciate the quick implementation and alignment with business needs. These awards are based on customer feedback and reviews, highlighting Twingate's value proposition as a secure access solution that simplifies onboarding, reduces provisioning timelines, and provides fast support.

Plex Media Server is a popular solution for organizing and accessing media from various devices. However, remote access can be cumbersome and insecure when relying on port forwarding. Twingate Starter offers a simple, secure, and free solution for home and personal use, allowing users to access their Plex Media Server without the need for port forwarding. With Twingate, users can set up a remote network, deploy a connector, and add resources, making it easy to share access with friends and family or access media on-the-go. The solution supports various devices, including NAS and Raspberry Pi, and is compatible with multiple operating systems. Users can download the Twingate client on their device and access their Plex Media Server securely.