The Illusion of Security
For decades, VPNs have been the go-to solution for remote access, giving employees, contractors, and partners a way to securely connect to internal systems. The logic seemed sound: create an encrypted tunnel, protect corporate resources from the open internet, and allow only authorized users inside.
But here’s the problem—VPNs don’t just grant access; they expand it.
Security isn’t just about encryption or perimeter defense. It’s about minimizing the attack surface—reducing the number of potential entry points an attacker can exploit. And this is exactly where VPNs fail. Instead of limiting access, they introduce more complexity, more software, and more risk.
If your goal is to make breaching your systems more expensive than the value of what’s inside—a core principle of security economics—then VPNs are fundamentally misaligned with that strategy. Instead of reducing risk, they widen the blast radius when something goes wrong.
VPNs: More Access Than Necessary
One of the biggest flaws of VPNs is that they grant overly broad access by default. Once a user connects, they often gain access to entire network segments—whether they need it or not. This is known as over-privileged access, and it’s a security nightmare.
Contrast this with how modern security works on the web:
When you log into your bank account, you’re only allowed to see your own financial data—not the bank’s internal systems.
When you use cloud-based tools like Google Drive, you get access only to the specific documents and folders you’ve been granted permission to.
Yet, in many corporate environments, VPNs fail to enforce this kind of least-privilege access. Instead, a single compromised VPN credential can give attackers lateral movement across the network, making it easier to escalate privileges and move undetected.
The Perimeter Problem: VPNs Bypass Security Controls
VPNs weren’t built for today’s distributed, cloud-heavy world. Their entire model is based on the outdated concept of a network perimeter, where everything inside is trusted and everything outside is not.
But modern organizations don’t work like that anymore:
Employees work remotely, using personal and unmanaged devices.
Applications run across multiple cloud providers, not a single corporate data center.
Sensitive data moves between SaaS platforms, APIs, and third-party services.
A VPN creates a tunnel through the perimeter—effectively bypassing firewalls and network access controls designed to filter and inspect traffic. Once inside, users (or attackers) can move freely, making breach containment nearly impossible without extensive network segmentation.
Worse yet, VPN vulnerabilities are a favorite target for attackers. According to CISA, nation-state actors and ransomware groups routinely exploit VPN flaws to gain access to corporate networks. The attack path is simple:
Find an unpatched VPN appliance.
Exploit a known vulnerability.
Gain full network access.
Typically, VPNs only verify access when a user logs in, leaving them with no ability to continuously assess risk during an active session. A compromised user or hijacked session remains active until manually revoked.
Security Economics: VPNs Increase Cost and Complexity
Security isn’t just about blocking threats—it’s also about cost-effectiveness. And VPNs come with hidden costs that most organizations fail to consider:
Maintenance Overhead
IT teams must install, update, and troubleshoot VPN clients across every user device.
Misconfigurations and compatibility issues create ongoing support burdens.
Patch management is critical, yet many devices remain unpatched, creating security gaps.
User Experience & Productivity Loss
VPN connections drop unexpectedly, forcing users to reconnect.
Performance issues arise due to latency and bandwidth limitations.
Employees often resort to VPN workarounds (like personal email or cloud file-sharing) to bypass restrictions, introducing shadow IT risks.
Expanded Attack Surface
VPN clients are privileged applications, often requiring deep system access.
They modify network settings, introduce kernel-level hooks, and can be exploited like any other software.
Palo Alto, Cisco AnyConnect, and other major VPN vendors regularly face zero-day vulnerabilities—meaning attackers can exploit them before patches are available.
At its core, VPNs create more problems than they solve. Every additional piece of software introduces potential security flaws. If you don’t need it, you shouldn’t be installing it.
A Better Approach: Verify Every Request, Not Just the Connection
The solution to VPN security flaws isn’t more VPNs or better perimeter defenses—it’s a fundamental shift in how access is managed.
Organizations are increasingly adopting zero-trust principles, which enforce security at the application level, rather than at the network level. Instead of granting broad access via VPN tunnels, modern security architectures verify every request individually, ensuring users can only access the specific resources they need—nothing more.
This model dramatically reduces attack surface by:
✔ Eliminating unnecessary software—no more VPN clients to patch, maintain, or exploit.
✔ Removing broad network access—users only access authorized applications, not entire subnets.
✔ Enforcing continuous authentication—access is re-evaluated based on user behavior and device posture, not just at login.
This is exactly why organizations are moving away from VPNs toward solutions that integrate security directly into how users access applications.
The Future of Secure Access
VPNs made sense in a world where corporate apps lived in a single data center and employees worked from the office. That world doesn’t exist anymore.
Security today isn’t about building bigger walls—it’s about eliminating unnecessary risks and ensuring access is precise, adaptive, and continuously verified.
If you don’t need another piece of software to do your job, then by definition, you’ve reduced the attack surface, lowered maintenance burdens, and improved security. That’s the future.
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