The Question That Everybody Asks: What’s The Difference Between Seacat and VPN?

image

One of the most common questions people asked us is “Is SeaCat some kind of a VPN?”

Well it’s not. Virtual Private Network (VPN) extends a private network across a public network, providing secure connectivity from/to a mobile device. Every application on this device, thus now has access to the private network through the channel opened by VPN. This is safe up to a certain level because it is almost impossible to ensure the integrity of every application on the devices. Especially now when there are apps for everything, and users can download them from Google Play and the Apple store.

Recent research from Arxan shows that 97% of the top 100 paid apps on the Google Android platform and 87% of the top 100 paid apps for Apple iOS had been hacked. Does it seem like almost every app has been hacked? As you can see, your data are not secured using applications from bespoke sources. Data being sent to and from your mobile application are easily stolen and used in a harmful way to you and your organisations.

One common hack we often hear about comes from the form of malware. What if you have them in your mobile devices? These malware apps would then, through the VPN channel you have opened, exploit the data residing on servers of your private network. For this precise reason that Gartner’s Janessa Rivera proposes “new models of building security directly into applications; every app needs to be self-aware and self-protecting.”

On the other hand, Seacat is a Mobile Secure Gateway (MSG) providing secure connectivity directly from the mobile application to the gateway entry to the DMZ before allowing any further activity to the sensitive data centre of your organisation. Because of the required mutual authentication, only application with trustable certificates are allowed to access the private network. This is the reason MSG narrows the attack vector to the minimum and keep your data as safe as possible.

Is SeaCat still a VPN? You tell us.




You Might Be Interested in Reading These Articles

The Outrageous Cost of HTTPS - Why?

Mobile applications use HTTP communication between the application backend and the clients. Because of the demand for higher level of security, IT people implement HTTPS by setting up certificates issued by LetsEncrypt Certification Authority in their application backend server. The shift between non secure HTTP connections to HTTPS connections leads to a significant increase of amount of data being transferred from/to the clients. How is this possible?

Continue reading ...

tech

Published on June 14, 2016

SeaCat trial for iOS on Mac OSX

This blog entry is meant to help you to start using SeaCat component on your Xcode iOS development environment. It contains instructions how to install and configure SeaCat gateway and how to integrate SeaCat client into your iOS application. SeaCat gateway is a secure gate to the restricted network. It allows access only to selected HTTP hosts and prevents exposure of others. It also secures communication with SeaCat clients that are typically in the Internet. SeaCat client becomes part of said mobile application and provides secured channel to SeaCat gateway and to target hosts in the restricted network. It ensures mutual security of the connection and transferred data.

Continue reading ...

tech trial ios osx

Published on March 14, 2014

Log management for absolute beginners

New to log management and cybersecurity? Or, maybe you're already a pro, but you're looking for a way to explain log management to someone who is? Either way, you're in the right place.

Continue reading ...

security tech

Published on April 15, 2025