Most secure way to access remotely

VPN
1

Hello all, a semi-newbie here.

In many posts, I see people recommending not to do port forwarding to NAS as it exposes them to the internet and it is dangerous.

While I do not use the default ports when I do port forwarding, the experts in this groups seem to be super against exposing the NAS to the internet in any shape or form.

So, my questions are:

  1. What would be the recommended way to access my NAS remotely? I don’t see the point of limiting a home server just to be accessed from within the same network. Is VPN connection the most secure way? If so, isn’t VPN a yet-another-door that opens your device to the internet, so what is the difference? Please tell me like you explain it to a 5 year old.
  2. What would be the recommended ways to secure my Synology and QNAP (yes I have both)? Should I simply block their access to the internet via router’s settings? If I do this, how will the devices update themselves? Or do you normally allow access to the internet for updates and then remove access again? Can you recommend any step-by-step articles that I can follow in order to ensure my NAS is secure?
  3. If I want to share files from my NAS with other people, am I expected to ask them have VPN in this case?
  4. Does it mean that one should not use the web server features of a NAS since exposing your NAS to internet is a bad thing?

Maybe I am misreading what the experts in this subreddit mean when they say ‘do not port forward’ or 'you must block access to your NAS.

I appreciate your help. I am happy to read any articles you can link to.

Thank you in advance.

2

I use OpenVPN with SSL certificates and a random Passphrase that unlocks them. VPN gives you full Access to all your Servers while having only one Port Open to the Public wan. You can also Change that away from the Standard 1194 so that brute forcers don’t See that as an Open port.