AWS announces WorkLink, for easy access to a company's internal content

AWS launches Amazon WorkLink – a new product, AWS says, will enable companies to allow their workforce to access its intranet and internal web apps ‘much easier’. WorkLink is a fully managed service that provides users with secure one-click access to internal websites and web applications from their mobile devices without connecting to VPNs or using custom browsers. 

All it requires is for the users to download the Amazon WorkLink app to start accessing internal content through existing browsers on their mobile devices. WorkLink securely renders the permitted content as a fully functional, graphical representation of the web content to the user requesting it. Not only is the data delivered by WorkLink non-cached, but it also “knows nothing about personal device activity,” says AWS. In simple words, the company’s data is never exposed to outsiders, even if the device is stolen or tampered with.

With WorkLink, mobile devices connect to the corporate network only via an ephemeral cloud-based browser which disappears at the end of each session, making sure that the corporate content only resides within the customer’s network. Because Amazon WorkLink is fully managed, it removes the heavy lifting of software and infrastructure deployment, scaling, and other demanding tasks.

“With Amazon WorkLink, we're enabling greater workplace productivity for those outside the corporate firewall in a way that IT administrators and security teams are happy with and employees are willing to use,” said Peter Hill, Vice President of Productivity Applications at AWS

Amazon WorkLink, which is available immediately in North America and Europe, will only work with iOS 12+ and the Safari browser, as of now. However, AWS is already working to bring “support for Android devices and the Chrome browser within weeks” and “support for other regions will roll out later this year,” AWS wrote in its blog post.