* AppGate's Secure Access Platform now has SSL support
Editor’s Note : On Dec. 4, this newsletter will shift its focus from VPNs to network access control. NAC is an emerging network security architecture that starts with securing endpoints before they connect to networks and extends to monitoring and controlling their activity after they have been admitted. There are working NAC products today, but most vendors committed to NAC are still fleshing out their products, which makes it an area that warrants a newsletter of its own. Along with the shift in focus comes a new, intuitive name: the Network Access Control Newsletter. We hope you find it useful. Network World and networkworld.com will continue to cover VPNs as part of our regular news coverage. Thanks for reading.
AppGate, which always had its own spin on VPNs, is now adding SSL support to its multifunction platform, essentially giving the platform SSL VPN capabilities.
Until now, AppGate’s Secure Access Platform used SSH to allow remote users to connect securely to create network-layer links to AppGate Security Servers at corporate sites.
While this technology gave customers remote access capabilities, it required client software on the remote machines. Not having this requirement is something that makes clientless SSL VPNs attractive to a growing numbers of users.
AppGate is diverging from its SSL VPN competitors in that it won’t add downloadable agents that alter application-layer SSL links to network-layer connections. The company says for that functionality, it will continue to use SSH in conjunction with SSH clients or downloadable SSH agents.
In other words, AppGate’s SSL support requires only a browser on the remote machine, but that limits access to Web applications only. Access to traditional client-server applications through a Security Server requires use of the SSH client.
So now, like SSL and IPSec vendors, AppGate offers Web and traditional client-server application support, but does so without using IPSec.
AppGate chose SSH in the first place the company was established to secure traffic within networks. As the company expanded its role to include network-layer remote access, it stuck with SSH rather than adopting IPSec.
The Security Server supports a firewall and secure instant messaging. It also supports external directories that it may reference for authorization policies that limit users or groups of users in what applications they are allowed to reach. These directories include LDAP, Active Directory, RADIUS and SecureID.
