An external client securely accesses a private corporate network using a communications device, but without the communications device being required to communicate through the private corporate network when communicating with resources external to the private corporate network. The external client establishes a connection with the private corporate network over the public network such as the Internet using, for example, Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). The external client then provides security to the connection by running, for example, the Secure Socket Layer (SSL) protocol over the TCP protocol. During the ensuing session with the private corporate network, the communications device establishes a subsequent connection(s) with the external resource.