Systems and methods for using push notifications for security policy enforcement

An advancement over previous techniques uses push notifications to inform users of actions by a security appliance or network gateway. The network gateway provides network gateway services to a user device and enforces security policies on the communications to and from the user device. When a security policy blocks a communication, the user may know network traffic is being lost but does not know why. The user device can subscribe to a push server using a public encryption key provided by the security appliance. The security appliance can thereafter send push notifications via the push server to the user. The push notifications can inform the user of security policies being applied to communications to and from the user device.