Security appliance vendor Aventail has released a product designed to help companies that enable users to access corporate applications through public portals such as at airport kiosks tighten end-point security control.

Aventail Secure Desktop and Cache Control removes all data collected in the session by browser or processing attachments, including cookies, browser history, auto-complete or stored password, temporary file and downloaded files.

The Secure Desktop provides real-time encryption of the user's session, including all downloaded attachments, files, cookies and cached content on unmanaged devices. The encrypted vault is destroyed at the end of the session, erasing any information that was viewed or saved.

"We're going from a secure VPN to access from anywhere, so companies need security controls at the end point," says Evan Kaplan, president and CEO of Aventail. "This is changing the way that people work, enabling them to work safely from anywhere. The dark side is that you never leave work."

A management console allows security administrators to set the configuration for a range of settings, including duration before inactivity timeout is triggered, whether uses can have permission to bypass cache control, whether the user can toggle from the Secure Desktop to a normal desktop, actions a user can take from the desktop (print files, save to disk), and whether the user is allowed to save information between sessions.

When a user logs into a Web applications secured by Aventail EX-1500 SSL VPN appliance, the machine determines whether Cache Control can run in the user's environment. If it can, the user proceeds to authenticate and access; if not, the user receives a failure message.

Cache Control activates when the user logs out, closes the browser or times out. When users of Aventail Secure Desktop log into a Web application protected by the EX-1500, the appliance determines of the Secure Desktop can run in the user's environment. If yes, the software creates a virtual environment in which all session-based information is encrypted.

Secure Desktop and Cache Control is priced at $2,200 for 25 concurrent users. The Aventail appliances start at $13,995 and range up to $80,000 for the higher-end models.