Security risks of an un-encrypted connection across an international WAN? <p>The organisation for which I work has an international WAN that connects several of its regional LANs. One of my team members is working on a service that receives un-encrypted messages directly from a FIX gateway in Tokyo to an app server in London, via our WAN. The London end always initiates the authenticated connection, and at no point do these messages leave our WAN. </p> <p>But our local security guru suggests that we should be encrypting these messages as a <a href="http://www.darkreading.com/story/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=216403220" rel="nofollow noreferrer">WAN apparently has significantly more security risk than a LAN</a>. How much easier is it really to break into a WAN than a LAN? And what other security risks does a WAN pose in this context?</p> <p><strong>UPDATE:</strong> Many thanks for your answers. I've decided to encrypt the connection, mainly because it's clear that the WAN does introduce extra security vulnerabilities due to the hardware being outside of our physical control. </p>