2019-07-24 ; 3.00 hrs ; Donation @ $50/hr
Back in April 2017 I was involved with researching the possibility of connecting the PD with the NH Department of Safety via a VPN. After a few emails with NHDOS, this project was put on the back burner.
I decided to follow up on this with Ben Tokarz to see if anything had been done with this project. After learning that it was still desired but no work had been done, I reached out to NHDOS to ask more questions. I’ve discovered that in order to make the VPN connection, the device at the PD must be FIPS 140-2 certified. Unfortunately, the Ubiquiti Security Gateway (USG) that I had wanted to install at the PD is not currently certified. This would require the PD to replace the aging Sonicwall with a newer model.
One purchase option is the Soncwall “3 & Free” promotion. Buy 3 years of service and support and get the firewall free. The cost for this is about $1,500 and runs through the end of this month, July 31. The firewall with one year of service and support costs about $895 with service and support for years 2 and following costing $545 per year.
The NHDOS also referred me to the CJIS Security Policy Standards which has created more questions for me to understand. I asked Ben if there is another PD similar in size to Warner that has a VPN connection that we could talk to about their environment. Ben said he would reach out to Henniker. Hopefully we can visit their PD for a show-and-tell session to understand what their implementation is like.