Aventail Cache Control adds security to client machines

Aventail is upgrading its Secure Sockets Layer remote access gear by including features that don’t affect the secure SSL sessions themselves, but adds security to the machines that support the SSL sessions.

The first feature being introduced is called Cache Control, which wipes out browser history, auto-completed passwords, cookies and the like from Web browsers on the machines used for the SSL session. The purpose is to eliminate records of the sessions from the remote machine so a later user can’t crack into the secure network being protected by an Aventail SSL remote access gateway.

This is useful because SSL remote access is designed to be used on any machine as a convenience, and the security of these machines cannot always be guaranteed, especially those rented in public places or borrowed from other users. Other SSL remote access vendors offer variants of this.

The other major feature Aventail is adding is called Secure Desktop, which creates a virtual desktop on the remote machine. The SSL remote access session runs on this virtual desktop and when the session is over, the desktop is wiped out. It will wipe out any files downloaded during a session in addition to all the traces wiped out by Cache Control.

Through Aventail’s management console, Secure Desktop can be configured to allow flexibility. For example, a user could be authorized to switch between the regular desktop and the virtual desktop or be allowed to store downloaded files to a disk rather than leaving them on the virtual desktop.

Cache Control works on Windows 98 and later operating systems as well as Mac OS 9, Mac OS 10 and Linux Red Hat 9 or later. Secure Desktop runs on Windows 2000 or XP.

Cache Control comes standard with Aventail appliances and Secure Desktop starts at $2,200 for a 25-user license. Both will be available by mid-year.