This acronym means "Virtual Private Networking". VPN is a secure means of moving sensitive information across an inherently unsecure network, such as the Internet, to a protected network behind a secure gateway. VPN traffic is encrypted to secure the information, and encapsulated so that the secure gateway understands where to send the traffic in the protected network. Encapsulation can also have the desirable side-effect of concealing the final destination, or the real source from prying eyes during its transmission across the unsecure network. The Raptor Firewall supports the ISAKMP dynamic key exchange mechanism, which reduces the administrative tasks necessary for configuring VPN traffic. Since the IPSEC and ISAKMP technologies are public domain standards, the VPN functionality of the Raptor firewall can interoperate with other vendor platforms that are also compliant.