As remote work and cloud-based systems become standard, companies of all sizes are seeking alternatives to Virtual Private Networks (VPNs). Traditional VPNs are increasingly outdated, underperforming, and insecure. While many modern technologies claim to be alternatives to VPN for remote access, they likely still carry similar weaknesses. This article will help you understand the security and performance challenges VPNs have and explore better alternatives. We will also explain why Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is the far superior alternative to VPNs.

VPN: A growing security risk

Initially, security frameworks aligned with physical infrastructure as computers entered the business world. Centralized computing resources were large, static, and company-owned, accessible only by employees through managed desktop computers connected to the office network. A secure perimeter kept threats outside the network while allowing trusted employees to work freely. With the advent of portable computers, employees could work while traveling, but this required a secure connection through the perimeter.

VPNs originally linked remote offices to corporate data centers over the internet. VPNs adapted this model to let remote users through the secure perimeter, making user devices extensions of the protected network upon connecting and authenticating via a VPN gateway.

Outdated and inefficient

Over the past three decades, the landscape has changed significantly. Business resources are no longer confined to a central, on-prem data center. Applications are now hosted in the cloud or sourced from various service providers. Companies depend on a mix of employees, contractors, and third parties, with resources accessed from diverse devices outside direct company control.

These changes were accelerated by the pandemic, which shifted network traffic patterns drastically. Previously, most traffic originated from the company network, with few employees needing remote access. And overnight, everyone had to work remotely, often from personal devices, overwhelming the VPN gateway.

Despite longstanding awareness of VPN vulnerabilities and inefficiencies, many organizations delayed migrating to other solutions. Now, the limitations of VPNs are undeniable. 

VPN weaknesses in network security

VPN gateways must publish their presence on the internet to allow remote connections, making them visible to anyone using simple scanning tools. Hackers can easily gather information about these gateways, and one unpatched VPN appliance can expose the entire network.

VPNs, designed to link managed networks, trust any authenticated connection. If credentials are stolen or exploited, hackers can access the network as trusted users, move laterally, escalate privileges, and establish a foothold within the network.

Privileged access management challenges

VPN challenges are especially pronounced for privileged users, whose credentials are prime targets for cybercriminals. A compromised privileged account can grant attackers the power to make system-level changes and escalate privileges. VPNs only provide remote network access and do not secure privileged accounts.

VPN performance issues

The hub-and-spoke topology of VPN systems exacerbates network performance problems. VPN gateways concentrate all remote traffic through the private network, even when the destination is a cloud service. Data returning to the user also passes through the gateway.

VPN clients typically route all user traffic through the gateway by default. Applications like video conferencing, which could securely use the internet, instead create unnecessary loads on the private network.

Furthermore, VPN gateways become chokepoints when accessed by many remote users, rationing bandwidth as they reach their capacity limits.

These issues were manageable when only a small portion of the workforce needed remote access. Now, increased demands for bandwidth and rising latency degrade the user experience for both remote and on-prem users. 

VPN management difficulties

VPNs force organizations to manage fragmented access control infrastructures. An enterprise VPN solution grants access only to a company’s private network, while each cloud platform and third-party service has its own VPN solution. Ensuring consistent security and access policies across multiple systems is challenging, and any misconfiguration can create vulnerabilities for hackers to exploit.

Enterprise VPN alternatives

Several solutions offer remote access alternatives to VPN, but many face similar challenges due to its underlying technologies.

Remote Desktop Protocol (RDP) & Virtual Desktop Interfaces (VDIs)

Microsoft’s RDP and other VDI technologies provide an in-office experience from home. These solutions act like streaming services, sending the desktop’s monitor output to the user’s device, and returning keyboard and mouse inputs. This ensures sensitive data never leaves the company.

However, RDP and similar technologies share VPN’s weaknesses, as users connect through publicly visible gateways vulnerable to exploits. One leg of the round trip may be eliminated, but traffic from cloud resources still burdens the private network.

Software-Defined Wide-Area Networks (SD-WAN)

SD-WANs are an evolution of VPN’s original purpose, using software-defined networking to link an organization’s locations. SD-WAN vendors offer two remote access options: a VPN service with associated weaknesses or an SD-WAN appliance at the remote user’s location. The appliance offers better security on home networks and redundancy with LTE connections but can be expensive and only works in fixed locations.

Secure Access Service Edge (SASE)

SASE is a Gartner-developed framework for enterprise networking, enabling decentralized, cloud-based architectures. While remote access is part of SASE, it encompasses much more. Many component technologies are still developing, often limiting SASE solutions to large enterprises with significant resources. Fortunately, the access control component of SASE — ZTNA — is accessible and mature enough for companies of all sizes.

Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)

ZTNA is a modern security framework eliminating the weaknesses of legacy secure perimeter approaches like VPN. ZTNA unifies access control for all users and resources, regardless of location, based on three core concepts.

First, assume security breaches are always present. Attack surfaces have grown significantly since the days of the secure perimeter. Social engineering, stolen credentials, and exploits can give hackers instant network access. ZTNA assumes any network, device, credential, user, or resource could be compromised.

Second, explicitly verify every attempt to access a protected resource. Zero Trust does not assume anything is trustworthy. Trust must be earned through identity verification and a careful evaluation of device posture, connection source, and other contextual factors.

Third, only grant the minimum necessary access for each session. This principle of least privileges requires granular, role-based access rules. Unlike the broad access of VPN gateways, ZTNA grants users only enough access to complete their tasks.

Zero Trust vs. VPN

These principles drive a new approach to securing access to organizational assets. Unlike VPN, which allows access to all network resources, Zero Trust grants access to specific resources based on user roles. Granular access controls based on least privilege prevent hackers from moving laterally through a compromised network.

Explicit verification further mitigates cyberattacks. Even if a user’s account is compromised, identity verification is just one authentication criterion. Device posture checks, for example, can identify compromised devices and block access.

Cloud-native ZTNA solutions avoid VPN’s performance bottlenecks by creating direct connections between users and resources, reducing bandwidth pressure on private networks, and improving user experience through more efficient routing. 

NVIS AI's ZTNA solution

NVIS AI’s implementation of Zero Trust offers enhanced security and performance over traditional VPN technologies. NVIS AI creates software-defined perimeters (SDPs) around protected assets, allowing administrators to create micro-segmented network architectures that protect both on-prem and cloud resources within the same system.  In these micro-segments, the users are assigned into groups, which share a security context, and allows granular, Zero Trust access control to specific resources that are assigned to them.

NVIS AI can connect to any network resource, no matter the type, to include on-prem, cloud, multi-cloud, multi-network—even OT and IoT.  Furthermore, since NVIS AI is unaffected by VPN blockers, these network resources can exist anywhere in the world—even in space and undersea. 

Stealth mode: On

Unlike VPN gateways, NVIS AI's solution does not broadcast its presence. On-prem resources are hidden from the private network, and cloud resources are invisible on the public internet—eliminating the entire public attack surface. After all, hackers can’t hack what they can’t see.

NVIS AI uses its own proprietary NVIS IP addresses which mirror and overlay the defined network.  That way, the network cannot be blocked, sniffed, or traced.

As for the connections between network resources, they are direct, peer-to-peer tunnels, encrypted at Layer 2, hiding the source, destination, and traffic.

Improved performance with NVIS Zero Trust

Replacing VPN’s hub-and-spoke topology with direct, peer-to-peer tunnels makes private networks more efficient and secure.  There is no routing, so latency is significantly reduced, therefore resulting in blazingly fast performance compared to VPN.  User traffic destined for cloud resources bypasses the private network, eliminating unnecessary round trips and gateway congestion. NVIS AI’s remote access solution alleviates bandwidth pressure on managed networks.

Managing secure access is much easier with NVIS AI than with legacy VPN systems. Deploying NVIS AI in front of every on-prem and cloud resource lets you manage access within a single system.  The Admin Portal simplifies onboarding, offboarding, and changing user permissions. This all could be done via Command Line Interface as well. 

Migrating to NVIS AI’s ZTNA solution

Switching from your existing VPN system to NVIS AI’s ZTNA solution can be gradual or all at once without ripping or replacing anything on the network. NVIS AI can coexist with your existing network infrastructure and workflows, allowing phased implementation, starting with the users that benefit the most.

With AI provisioning, complex networks can be configured and deployed in minutes without requiring much tech skill or intimate familiarity with the network.  

NVIS AI: A comprehensive VPN alternative

VPN technologies were developed when secure perimeters were effective. They create a portal through private network defenses for a few remote users to access centralized information resources. This framework is no longer suitable for today’s decentralized, cloud-enabled ecosystem, with the rise of remote work and AI threats.

After exploring modern alternatives to VPNs, the most secure and efficient solution is ZTNA, where NVIS AI is best-in-class.  NVIS AI eliminates the entire public attack surface, blazingly fast, uncensorable, and inexpensive, while easy to deploy in minutes without any tech skill and changes to the network or workflows.

Get started today and experience the difference. Feel free to also schedule a demo or talk with our team to demonstrate how NVIS AI secures access to your network.