Skip to content

Security model

Placing a testing appliance inside your network is an act of trust. The RTA is designed so that the consultant assigned to your engagement can reach your network, and nobody else can, and so that you stay in control of the appliance for the whole engagement.

One outbound connection, nothing inbound

The appliance initiates a single outbound, encrypted VPN tunnel to connect.remotetesting.secureworks.com on TCP/443. You never open or forward any inbound ports, and the appliance accepts no connections from the internet. All testing traffic and all consultant access ride inside this tunnel. The endpoint details, static IP addresses, and firewall/NAC guidance are on Connectivity troubleshooting.

Mutual authentication

The appliance and the Sophos endpoint authenticate each other with unique certificates issued for your engagement before the tunnel establishes. If the connection is intercepted or tampered with (for example, by a TLS inspection device in the path), authentication fails and the tunnel does not come up: the connection fails closed rather than falling back to anything weaker. Sophos can revoke an appliance's credentials at any time, which immediately cuts that appliance off.

Who can access the appliance

  • Only the consultant(s) assigned to your engagement can reach your appliance.
  • Consultant access requires multi-factor authentication and is scoped so a consultant reaches only the appliance for their engagement, never another customer's.
  • Consultant access is restricted and audited.

Isolation

  • Appliances cannot communicate with each other: yours is isolated from every other customer's.
  • The tunnel is not a general internet path. The appliance cannot be used to route unmonitored traffic between your network and the internet.
  • No person or system other than the authorized consultant(s) can use the tunnel to reach your network.

What the appliance exposes on your network

An idle appliance exposes only an SSH service on your network. Services a consultant opens during active testing are shut down when testing concludes, returning the appliance to that idle state.

Controls you keep

You keep physical and administrative control of the appliance for the whole engagement:

  • Power it off (or pause the VM) at any time; this suspends all consultant access instantly.
  • Block its outbound connection at your firewall, with the same effect.
  • Delete it when the engagement ends; see Lifecycle and disposal.

Turning the appliance off pauses testing

Cutting the appliance's power or connectivity is always your call, but it stops the consultant's work with it. If you need to do it mid-engagement, a heads-up to your engagement lead keeps the testing schedule intact.