ZTNA vs. VPN
While VPNs served their purpose in a strictly on-prem world, the accelerated migration to the cloud has revealed its limitations and new technologies are being ushered in. Amongst those, ZTNA is largely considered the evolution of VPN remote access due to several factors:
Reducing the attack surface
VPNs extend the network fabric across multiple differently located sites, which now includes notoriously insecure home offices. This expands the organization’s attack surface by connecting secure and unsecured networks together, including home networks.
So, while a remote employee may be only accessing legitimate work apps, other users/devices could spread malware through an unsecured machine connected to the VPN. Considering that 82% of data breaches involved a human element, the more devices and users with access to an organization’s entire network, the higher the cyber risk.
On the other hand, ZTNA allows more granular control over who can access what. It operates on the principle of least privilege, thereby only establishing specific application-to-user connections—creating a more defined perimeter for the attack surface.
Furthermore, unlike a VPN, which…
