Today, focus for WinGate is primarily access control, email server, caching, reporting, bandwidth management and content filtering.
The Enterprise edition also provides an easily configured virtual private network system, which is also available separately as WinGate VPN.
This made open WinGate servers common targets of crackers looking for anonymous redirectors through which to attack other systems.
Some versions of the Sobig worm installed an unlicensed copy of WinGate 5 in a deliberately insecure configuration to be used by spammers.
These installations used non-standard ports for SOCKS and WinGate remote control and so in general did not interfere with other software running on the infected host computer.