Patent ID: 8086845

Claim:
A computer-implemented method of supporting secure communication between a client and a server, the method comprising: connecting, by the client, to a network, wherein the connection is made through a client network interface including a hypertext transport protocol secure (HTTPS) module; sending, by the client, a request to establish an HTTPS session with the server; establishing the HTTPS session between the client and the server; after establishment of the HTTPS session, establishing a secure socket tunneling protocol (“SSTP”) tunnel over the HTTPS session for tunneling application traffic via a point-to-point (“PPP”) protocol from the client to the server, wherein the establishing the SSTP tunnel comprises: establishing an SSTP connection from the client network interface to a server network interface over the HTTPS session; establishing, over the SSTP connection, a PPP session with the server; and after establishment of the SSTP tunnel: tunneling control data traffic over the SSTP tunnel; and tunneling data traffic via the PPP protocol over the SSTP tunnel, wherein the data traffic is sent from one or more applications supported on the client using the client network interface.