IP Mapping: How secure is it?

[Punikin]

Hello fellow Anandtechers,

I have a question about IP mapping and how secure it is to prevent hackers on my lan. I have an FTP server using port forwarding, or pinholes, as my router calls it, and a web server using ip mapping. The web server has an internal ip address that is in my lan's network ip range, so it has access to my lan. In the router, I have added an IP Map to my web server's internal IP and mapped it to a static IP address provided by my ISP. So basically, anyone who types in the external static ip adress into their web browser will see my web site stuff. My question is, how easy is it for someone to access my lan's network? Also, is my FTP server at a risk using pinholes, or should I also use IP mapping for the FTP server, which by the way is not using IIS, but just a regular FTP server software. Thanks for the input.

 

[Punikin]

Anybody?

 

[bgroff]

Of course its a risk. Any time you open access from your internal LAN to the Internet, that's a way for someone to gain access. Once they gain access at one point, its then possible to begin elevating priviledges. Or gaining access to other devices on the internal LAN.

 

[skyking]

It depends on how well you keep your servers up-to-date on security patches, etc.
If at all possible, subnet the servers off your internal LAN entirely.