VPN vs Zero Trust: Why the Traditional VPN Is Now Considered Legacy

A traditional VPN gives anyone who connects access to the whole network, and its gateway sits exposed to the internet, which is why it is considered legacy technology. Zero Trust, and ZTNA in particular, verifies identity and device on every access and delivers only the application the user needs. For a company with remote staff, branches or outside vendors, it is the VPN alternative that NIST and CISA guidance supports.

What the VPN did well, and why it no longer fits

The VPN was built for a simple world: applications lived in the office, employees sat inside it, and the internal network was the trusted place. When someone worked from home, the VPN stretched that network to their laptop through an encrypted tunnel. For years that worked.

Today applications are spread across Microsoft 365, SaaS platforms, public clouds and company servers. Users connect from home, a coffee shop or an airport, and vendors and contractors come along. A VPN that connects each person to the entire internal network still assumes that whoever is inside can be trusted, and attackers rely on exactly that assumption.

VPN vs Zero Trust is not a marketing fad. It is the difference between handing out a master key to the building and opening, case by case, the one office door a person needs.

For a Panamanian small or midsize business the practical point is this: every office, every remote worker and every vendor with remote access is a path into the network. If that path depends on a single exposed device, one flaw or one stolen password can cost days of operation. Reducing that dependency is a business continuity decision, not only a technology one.

Three structural problems of the traditional VPN

First, access is too broad. Once authenticated, a user often reaches entire network segments. If a credential is stolen, the attacker inherits that reach and can move laterally toward servers and data they were never meant to see.

Second, the VPN gateway is exposed to the internet. For anyone to connect from outside, the device must listen on a public address. That makes it a permanent target, and every vulnerability in its software becomes an entry point if it is not patched in time.

Third, trust is evaluated once. The VPN validates the user at connection time and then watches little: it does not re-check whether the device is still healthy or whether behavior has changed. Add the slow experience when all traffic loops back through the office, and the effort of managing tunnels for dozens of branches and third parties.

None of this depends on the brand. These are consequences of the design: a trusted internal network, a public front door, and access by network instead of access by application.

What the data says about VPNs and edge devices

Verizon’s 2025 DBIR reports that exploitation of vulnerabilities as an initial access step grew 34% and now accounts for 20% of breaches, with a significant focus on zero-day exploits against perimeter devices and VPNs.

The US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) maintains a public catalog of actively exploited vulnerabilities (KEV), which listed 1,748 entries when we checked. It includes products from many vendors, among them VPN gateways and firewalls. In January 2024 CISA even issued an emergency directive over «widespread and active exploitation» of vulnerabilities in a VPN product from Ivanti.

In February 2025, CISA and agencies from Canada, Australia, the UK and other countries published guidance on securing edge devices, which covers firewalls, routers and VPN gateways. The message is consistent: VPN concentrators of every brand are exposed to the internet and need disciplined patching, monitoring and a plan to shrink their exposure.

A note on context: these figures describe vulnerability exploitation in general and on perimeter devices. They do not say every VPN is insecure. A well-patched, segmented VPN is still better than no control, but its structural risk is higher than that of a model with no public front door.

What Zero Trust and ZTNA mean, according to NIST

The reference standard is NIST SP 800-207, Zero Trust Architecture (August 2020). It describes zero trust as a set of paradigms that shifts defense from static network perimeters to users, assets and resources, with no implicit trust based on network location or asset ownership. Authentication and authorization of user and device are separate steps completed before each session opens.

ZTNA (Zero Trust Network Access) is the practical way to apply that principle to remote access. Instead of connecting the user to the network, an access service checks who they are, which device they use and whether policy is met, and only then connects them to one specific application.

CISA complements the framework with its Zero Trust Maturity Model 2.0, which has five pillars and three cross-cutting capabilities and helps an organization measure where it stands and plan next steps. Nobody needs to reach perfection: progress comes in stages.

In plain terms: the VPN asks «are you connected?» and Zero Trust asks «who are you, from which device, and what do you need to open right now?»

Practical comparison: VPN vs ZTNA

These are the differences that matter when deciding:

• Scope of access: the VPN usually grants access to the network or wide segments; ZTNA grants access to specific applications, with least privilege.
• Exposure: the VPN gateway listens for inbound connections from the internet; in ZTNA the application connector opens outbound connections and needs no inbound ports.
• Verification: the VPN mainly validates at connection; ZTNA evaluates identity, device and context on every access.
• Lateral movement: with a VPN a compromised account sees a lot of network; with ZTNA it sees only what its policy allows.
• Experience: the VPN often routes traffic through the office; ZTNA connects the user to the application by the shortest available path.
• Third parties: giving a vendor VPN access means opening the network to them; with ZTNA you grant a single application and remove it with a policy change.

What each platform offers

There are several valid paths, and the right one depends on your infrastructure, team and licenses. With Cloudflare, Cloudflare Tunnel connects your resources without a publicly routable IP address: the connector opens an outbound connection from your infrastructure to the Cloudflare network, and you can block all inbound traffic at your firewall. Identity and device policies are then applied on top.

Fortinet offers FortiSASE and ZTNA with FortiClient, a good fit when the company already runs FortiGate and wants to extend the same policies to remote users. See our Fortinet page for details. Palo Alto Networks offers Prisma Access, aimed at organizations with advanced network security requirements, covered on our Palo Alto Networks page.

No platform is the universal answer. A sensible starting point is understanding which applications and users you have, and our cybersecurity services team can help you map that.

How to move from VPN to Zero Trust without disrupting operations

You do not need to switch off the VPN on day one. An orderly migration usually follows these stages:

1. Inventory. List internal applications, who uses them and from where. Include vendor and contractor access.

2. Identity first. Enable multi-factor authentication for everyone and, where possible, phishing-resistant methods. Zero Trust depends on strong identity.

3. Pilot with low-risk applications. Publish one or two applications through ZTNA to a small group and measure the experience.

4. Per-application policies. Define who gets into what, with device health requirements.

5. Migrate in waves and close the door. Once groups are migrated, retire VPN access and close the public port on the gateway.

Measure the result with simple indicators: how many users no longer rely on the VPN, how many applications have their own policy, and how many public ports remain open. A prior assessment avoids surprises. To see how we work, visit our Cloudflare experts page: we design the pilot, the policies and the VPN retirement plan together with your team.

Frequently asked questions

Does Zero Trust completely replace the VPN?

For most user-to-application access, yes. Some specific workloads, such as site-to-site links or legacy equipment, may keep a tunnel during the transition. The goal is to reduce and protect what remains.

What did Gartner predict about ZTNA and VPN?

As reported by Data Center Knowledge, Gartner projected that by 2025 at least 70% of new remote access deployments would rely on ZTNA rather than VPN services. The prediction covers new deployments, not the installed base of VPNs.

Is ZTNA the same as SASE?

No. ZTNA is the application access component. SASE combines ZTNA with functions such as secure web gateway, firewall as a service and network connectivity in one cloud architecture.

Does a well-configured VPN stop being secure?

Not necessarily. A patched VPN with MFA and segmentation lowers the risk. The problem is structural: a gateway exposed to the internet and broad network-level access. That is why security guidance recommends reducing the dependency.

How long does a Zero Trust migration take?

It depends on the number of applications and the maturity of your identity setup. A pilot with the first applications can be ready in a few weeks; the full migration is planned in waves based on the inventory.

If you want to know which part of your remote access can move to Zero Trust, we can review it with you and propose a pilot. See how we implement it

Sources

1. Data Center Knowledge – Gartner: Zero Trust Will Replace Your VPN by 2025 (2022): Coverage of Gartner's prediction: at least 70% of new remote access deployments would rely on ZTNA rather than VPN; scope limited to new deployments.
2. NIST – SP 800-207 Zero Trust Architecture (2020): Definition of zero trust, no implicit trust from network location, user and device authentication and authorization before each session.
3. CISA – Zero Trust Maturity Model Version 2.0: Model with five pillars and three cross-cutting capabilities.
4. Verizon – 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (press release): Exploitation of vulnerabilities grew 34% and accounts for 20% of breaches, with focus on perimeter devices and VPNs.
5. CISA – Known Exploited Vulnerabilities Catalog: Public catalog of exploited vulnerabilities; 1,748 entries when checked.
6. CISA – Emergency Directive ED 24-01: Ivanti Connect Secure and Policy Secure (2024): January 2024 emergency directive over widespread and active exploitation of a VPN product.
7. CISA – Guidance on securing edge devices (4 Feb 2025): February 2025 international guidance covering firewalls, routers and VPN gateways.
8. Cloudflare Docs – Cloudflare Tunnel: Outbound-only connections without a publicly routable IP; inbound traffic can be blocked.