NIU's virtual private network (VPN) service allows current faculty, staff and students to log in and then send and receive data securely across public networks. Several enterprise applications at NIU, including PeopleSoft, Cascade, etc., require VPN access from off campus. All NIU employees and students, however, are encouraged to use NIU's VPN service to access NIU data and applications whenever they are away from the campus network and especially when traveling.
If you're off campus and accessing internet-based tools that are only available to on-campus users, you'll need to connect to the VPN. Please note, you do not need the VPN to access O365 or Blackboard.
Depending on your home network, you may not be able to connect to home devices when connected to VPN. This is especially true in two circumstances:
Workarounds include:
Do not use Firefox. Details about the browser issue below:
If you are still unable to install the client or cannot successfully login, please submit an incident.