split tunnelling
termnetworking
Sending only the traffic destined for corporate resources through the tunnel, and letting everything else go straight out to the internet.
The alternative, full tunnelling, sends everything through the concentrator, which gives the security team one place to inspect and log but makes them the carrier for every video call and software update the workforce generates. Full tunnelling collapsed as a default in 2020, when concentrators sized for a fraction of the workforce met all of it at once and the arithmetic stopped working. The argument against splitting is that traffic which never crosses the tunnel is never inspected, and that a compromised laptop has a foot in both networks at the same time. The argument for it is capacity and user experience, and the honest position is that neither wins on principle: it is a decision about where inspection happens, and moving inspection to the endpoint or to a cloud-delivered service is what makes splitting defensible rather than merely cheaper.
Also known as: split tunnel, split tunnelling, split tunneling, full tunnel