IgNiTeD SoUL

Network Access Protection (NAP) is an added feature that can help protect your network

from remote access clients. NAP helps you protect the network from the clients.

Within a local area network (LAN), you can control client computers to ensure they are safe and healthy. You can use Group Policy to ensure that it’s locked down from a security perspective and that it is getting the required updates. Antivirus and spyware software can be pushed out, regularly updated and run on clients. You can run scripts to ensure that all the corporate policies remain in place.

However, you can’t control a client accessing your network from a hotel or someone other Place. It’s entirely possible for a virus-ridden computer to connect to your network and cause significant problems. The solution is NAP, which is a set of technologies that can be used to check the health of a client. If the client is healthy, it’s allowed access to the network. If unhealthy, it’s quarantined and allowed access to remediation servers that can be used to bring the client into Compliance with the requirements. Health policies are determined and set by the administrator.

In the network you  use Windows Software Update Services (WSUS) to approve and  install the updates on clients. Since the VPN client isn’t in the network, they might not have the required updates. The client would be quarantined, and a WSUS server could be used as a remediation server to push the updates to the client. Once the updates are installed, the client could be rechecked and issued a health certificate and then granted access to the network.