How Secure is to o Secure? When Ease of Access and Security Collide (Trends & Tech‪)‬

I had an interesting encounter this past week. I was called into a client meeting to discuss final details on implementing an extranet. We already had built out the Web application that was going to be exposed outside the firewall. This application was a portal where members of the board of directors could access the various documents and agendas they needed to fulfill their duties as members of the board. The purpose of this meeting was to finalize the physical configuration of the extranet, specifically as it related to security and ease of access. We had had several meetings with senior IT staff and the business owners of the board of directors' portal content. Our original recommendation was to make use of the organization's existing SSL Secure Access VPN gateway. This was rejected as being too cumbersome.