Network provider Neoteris has improved support for mobile
users in the latest version of its Access Series secure virtual
private network.
The company said it was the first Secure Sockets Layer VPN product
for mobiles that did not require client software to be installed on
the device.
Neoteris hopes clientless VPN access will appeal to businesses that
want to allow employees in the field to access the corporate
network from handheld devices. The SSL capability will allow
employees to access e-mail and other corporate applications from a
web browser on a mobile device - either Opera on Symbian or
Internet Explorer on Pocket PC.
Clientless SSL VPNs are particularly suitable for mobile handset
use. The devices are becoming popular in the healthcare,
manufacturing/logistics and transport industries, where staff use
them to access patient records, inventory look-ups and driver and
vehicle details.
John Delany, an analyst with Ovum, said, "Clientless VPNs are
important, especially for Symbian devices, where storage space is
limited. The less software on the machine the better. As with fixed
networks, using IPSec [an IETF security protocol] is the cheaper
method and is the obvious candidate where the user is connecting
fixed sites, but if connecting remote workers from random
locations, IPSec is less suitable than SSL."
VPNs establish a "tunnel" for secure communications between two
points on a public network. They enable remote employees on fixed
or mobile devices to access an organisation's core networks. There
are two broad types of VPN: SSL and IPSec.
In the SSL version, when an SSL session is started, the server
sends its public key to the browser accessing it, which the browser
uses to send a randomly generated secret key back to the server for
that session. No software other than the browser is required.
IPsec works at layer three and secures everything in the network
and is thus more secure than SSL VPNs, but at a cost. It requires a
client to be preconfigured with software to operate on a given
network with a certain IP address.