{"id":11281,"date":"2025-06-27T13:07:47","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T11:07:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/staging.netxconsult.de\/blog\/vpn-und-sichereres-awingu\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T13:45:03","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T11:45:03","slug":"unsafe-vpn-and-why-awingu-psw-can-be-the-better-alternative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/netxconsult.de\/en\/blog\/unsafe-vpn-and-why-awingu-psw-can-be-the-better-alternative\/","title":{"rendered":"Insecure VPN – and why Awingu* (PSW) may be the better alternative"},"content":{"rendered":"

*Update October 2023: With the acquisition of Alludo, Awingu was renamed Parallels<\/strong>\u00ae<\/b> Secure Workspace<\/strong>. The described functions and advantages in security and flexibility remain unchanged. <\/em>With the new name, Awingu as Parallels Secure Workspace\u00ae is now a fully-fledged member of the Parallels family, alongside Parallels\u00ae Desktop, Parallels\u00ae RAS, Parallels\u00ae Toolbox and Parallels\u00ae Access.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>

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Friends would not recommend a VPN to friends<\/p>\n<\/blockquote><\/h1><\/div>

This quote is freely translated from a statement in a blog post<\/strong><\/a> by Matthew Sullivan (original quote: Friends don’t let friends use VPNs). In this blog post here, we will discuss why traditional VPN (Virtual Private Network) solutions are no longer “good enough” for organizations to enable remote work and telecommuting. In the last third of the post, we will introduce Awingu’s solution – an alternative to the classic VPN approach.<\/p>\n

For the sake of clarity, when we talk about VPN, we are explicitly not talking about P2P-managed VPN connections for bridging two locations or commercial VPN services (which are assumed to provide a more private and secure browsing experience).<\/p>\n

VPN – Virtual Private Network – dates back to the 1990s. In 1996, Microsoft employee Gurdeep Singh-Pall “invented” the PPTP (Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol). It offered a method for implementing virtual private networks and a secure Internet connection. In 1996, the world had 36 million Internet users (source<\/strong><\/a>). Two thirds of them were based in the USA. There were an astonishing 100,000 websites, Netscape was the browser of choice, and at 33.8 Kbps, users could surf the Internet at the speed of light. VPN was the tool of choice at the time. Of course, times have changed.<\/p>\n<\/div>

The typical security problems with corporate VPNs<\/h2><\/h1><\/div>

Your Content Goes Here<\/p>\n<\/div>

Once you’re in, you’re really “in”<\/h3>\n

According to an IDC analysis <\/strong>, more than 40% of security breaches come from authorized users, such as contractors, vendors and employees. The problem? VPNs don’t usually offer granular controls. But they are necessary for assigning users with specific rights. Once a remote user is authenticated by a VPN, that user is considered trusted and is granted access to everything on the corporate network. This makes the corporate network and its resources quite vulnerable and open to attacks or data leaks.<\/p>\n

VPN user access management is not only linked to the Active Directory (AD), but also to the device certificates. This means that when an employee leaves the company, their device certificate must be revoked – and like all manual tasks, this is unfortunately often forgotten.<\/p>\n<\/div>

The need to always use the latest version<\/h3>\n

VPN platforms are popular. Also with hackers. No platform can benefit from absolute security, and this is certainly true for VPN providers. In the past year alone, many of the most popular and widely used VPN platforms have been breached at their core – at the endpoint. In some cases, it took weeks for the manufacturers to provide a security patch that closed the gap. Below is just a small list of the most recent vulnerabilities:<\/p>\n