In addition to cases in which an administrator establishes a direct data connection to a given organisation for remote maintenance purposes, online services may be used. Here, the IT systems to be administered establish a connection to the servers of a third-party provider and the administrators use a web browser or similar means to access the systems.

If this communication is not subject to end-to-end encryption, the online service provider could read the data exchanged. In addition, the IT systems may also be administered by unauthorised persons if the data connection is manipulated. If the IT systems automatically establish a data connection to the online service upon starting up, they could be accessed directly without the users of the systems or the responsible administrator noticing.