The way we work has fundamentally changed, and network security needs to change with it. With employees connecting from home offices, coffee shops, and airports, and with business applications increasingly hosted in the cloud, the traditional corporate network perimeter has all but disappeared. This shift has exposed a critical weakness in how most organisations approach remote access: the VPN.
For decades, Virtual Private Networks served as the default method for connecting remote workers to company resources. But in today’s distributed environment, VPNs create more problems than they solve. They grant excessively broad access, frustrate users with slow connections, and leave security teams struggling to maintain visibility. Zero Trust Network Access, or ZTNA, offers a fundamentally different approach—one that’s quickly becoming the new standard for secure connectivity.
What Is Zero Trust Network Access?
Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is a security model that validates user identity, device status, and requested resources for every connection. Unlike VPNs that grant broad network access once authenticated, ZTNA provides precise, application-specific access based on who you are and what device you’re using. This approach dramatically reduces the risk of lateral movement if a breach occurs, because users only see the specific applications they need—nothing more.
Think of it this way: a VPN is like giving someone a master key to your entire building, while ZTNA is like giving them a key that only opens the specific rooms they need to access. If that key gets stolen, the damage is contained.
The Growing Problem with Traditional VPNs
VPNs were designed for a different era—when remote work was occasional, applications lived in on-premises data centres, and the network perimeter was clearly defined. In that world, creating a secure tunnel back to headquarters made sense. But today’s reality looks nothing like that.
Modern organisations face several challenges that VPNs simply cannot address effectively. The first is the problem of excessive access. When a user connects via VPN, they typically gain access to an entire network segment, even if they only need to use a single application. This creates unnecessary risk, because any compromise of that user’s credentials or device potentially exposes everything the VPN can reach.
User experience is another significant concern. Remote workers regularly complain about VPN connections that drop unexpectedly, slow down their work, or conflict with other applications. Split tunnelling—where some traffic goes through the VPN and some doesn’t—introduces its own security headaches. These frustrations aren’t just inconveniences; they lead employees to find workarounds that may bypass security controls entirely.
For IT teams, VPNs add operational complexity without providing the visibility they need. Managing firewall rules, troubleshooting connection issues, and maintaining VPN infrastructure consumes valuable time that could be spent on more strategic initiatives. And when something goes wrong, tracing the source of a problem through VPN logs can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.
How ZTNA Solves These Challenges
Zero Trust Network Access takes a fundamentally different approach to remote access. Instead of creating a tunnel to a network, ZTNA creates secure connections to specific applications. Every connection is individually authenticated and authorised based on the user’s identity, the health of their device, and the sensitivity of the resource they’re trying to access.
Enhanced Security Through Least Privilege
The core security benefit of ZTNA is its enforcement of least-privilege access. Users receive precisely the access they need to do their jobs—nothing more. A finance team member can access the invoicing application but won’t see the engineering systems. A contractor working on a specific project connects only to the resources relevant to that project. This granularity dramatically limits the potential damage from any single compromised account.
Device posture checks add another layer of protection. Before granting access, ZTNA can verify that a device meets security requirements: Is the operating system up to date? Is disk encryption enabled? Is endpoint protection running? Devices that fail these checks can be denied access or given limited permissions until they’re brought into compliance.
Better Experience for Users and IT Teams
Users benefit from a smoother, more transparent experience. ZTNA connections are typically faster and more reliable than VPNs, and they don’t require users to remember to connect before accessing resources. Authentication happens seamlessly through integration with identity providers, and policies follow users wherever they go.
IT teams gain clearer visibility and simpler management. With all access controlled through a central platform, administrators can see exactly who is accessing what, when, and from where. Policy changes can be made in one place and applied consistently across all users and applications. This centralisation also simplifies compliance reporting and incident investigation.
Meeting European Compliance Requirements
For European organisations, regulatory compliance adds urgency to the shift from VPN to ZTNA. The NIS2 Directive raises expectations for access control, logging, and incident response across essential and important entities. Organisations must demonstrate that access to critical systems is proportionate and traceable—exactly what ZTNA provides by design.
GDPR’s requirement that personal data access be limited to what’s necessary aligns perfectly with ZTNA’s least-privilege approach. Rather than granting broad network access that might inadvertently expose personal data, ZTNA ensures users can only reach the specific applications and data they’re authorised to access.
Identity-based policies and centralised logging create the audit trails that regulators expect. When an auditor asks how you control access to sensitive systems, you can show them clear role definitions, multi-factor authentication requirements, device posture checks, and comprehensive logs—all managed from a single platform.
Making the Transition: A Practical Approach
Moving from VPN to ZTNA doesn’t have to be a disruptive, all-or-nothing project. The most successful migrations take a phased approach that demonstrates value quickly while managing risk carefully.
Start by taking stock of your current environment. Map out which users need access to which applications, identify your most critical systems, and document your existing security controls. This foundation work ensures you’re not just replicating VPN access patterns in a new tool but actually implementing least-privilege access.
Connect your identity provider and establish device posture baselines early in the process. These integrations are essential for ZTNA to work effectively, and getting them right from the start prevents headaches later. Make sure your user groups align with business roles and that you have clear ownership for each application.
Begin your pilot with low-risk, high-usage applications—perhaps an internal wiki or time-tracking system. This allows your team to learn how ZTNA works in practice while the stakes are relatively low. Monitor user experience carefully, track support tickets, and refine your approach before expanding.
As confidence grows, progressively add more applications and user groups. Business-critical systems like ERP and CRM applications come next, with role-based policies and device requirements tailored to their sensitivity. Throughout this expansion, maintain VPN access for applications that haven’t yet been migrated, so users aren’t left without access to tools they need.
Only after achieving strong coverage—typically 80% or more of internal applications—should you begin decommissioning legacy VPN infrastructure. Even then, proceed carefully, removing configurations in stages and keeping documented fallback procedures available until you’re confident the transition is complete.
Addressing the Challenge of Agentless Devices
One challenge that catches many organisations off guard is handling devices that can’t run a ZTNA agent. Printers, IoT sensors, industrial equipment, and legacy systems often lack the capability to participate directly in identity-based access controls. Leaving these devices outside your Zero Trust architecture creates dangerous blind spots.
Inline isolation provides the answer. Purpose-built hardware can sit between agentless devices and the rest of your network, controlling what those devices can communicate with. A printer might be allowed to receive print jobs and send status information to a management server, but nothing else. An industrial controller might connect only to specific data collectors and update servers. This approach brings even devices without agents under Zero Trust controls, ensuring they can’t become pivot points for attackers.
Real-World Implementation Scenarios
Organisations across Europe are already realising the benefits of ZTNA. Municipal governments with distributed sites are deploying citizen portals and back-office applications through ZTNA, connecting branch offices via secure SD-WAN connections, and applying centralised web filtering. The result is consistent access controls and unified audit trails that satisfy oversight bodies.
Manufacturing companies with complex IT/OT environments are using ZTNA to give administrators secure access to plant systems with strong multi-factor authentication and session time limits. Industrial devices that can’t run agents operate behind inline isolation, permitting only approved communication flows. This creates secure connectivity between IT and OT without disrupting production.
Healthcare providers are protecting access to electronic health records and clinical systems while maintaining the quick access that clinicians need. Imaging devices are isolated to communicate only with picture archiving systems and update servers, limiting the impact of any potential compromise.
The Value of a Unified Security Platform
While ZTNA is powerful on its own, its full potential is realised when combined with complementary security capabilities in a unified platform. Secure Web Gateway functionality protects against web-based threats, ensuring that users don’t inadvertently download malware or access phishing sites. Firewall as a Service provides consistent policy enforcement at the network edge. SD-WAN optimises connectivity between sites while maintaining security controls.
Managing all these capabilities from a single, cloud-based console dramatically reduces operational complexity. Policies can be defined once and applied consistently across all users, devices, and locations. Logs from every component feed into a unified view, making incident investigation faster and compliance reporting simpler. For managed service providers supporting multiple clients, multi-tenant operations become manageable rather than overwhelming.
Taking the Next Step
The shift from VPN to ZTNA represents more than a technology upgrade – it’s a fundamental improvement in how organisations secure access to their resources. By enforcing least-privilege access, validating device security, and providing clear visibility, ZTNA addresses the limitations that have made VPNs increasingly inadequate for today’s distributed work environment.
For European organisations facing NIS2 compliance requirements and supporting hybrid workforces, the case for ZTNA is compelling. The question isn’t whether to make the transition, but how to do it effectively.
Ready to see how Zero Trust Network Access can transform your organisation’s security posture? Book a demo to receive a customised migration plan for your environment. Our platform combines ZTNA, Secure Web Gateway, Firewall as a Service, and SD-WAN in one cloud-managed solution—making Real SASE simple for organisations like yours.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is ZTNA suitable for mid-sized organisations?
Absolutely. ZTNA adapts well to mid-market requirements. Start with two or three applications for a single user group, then scale across roles and devices using proven patterns. Cloud-managed platforms make deployment and ongoing management feasible even for smaller IT teams.
Does ZTNA replace our network firewalls?
Not entirely. Maintain firewalls for north-south traffic controls at your network perimeter. ZTNA complements this infrastructure by enforcing identity-based access to internal applications with least-privilege principles. Think of ZTNA as adding a layer of precise, application-level control rather than replacing your existing network security.
How does ZTNA support NIS2 compliance?
ZTNA demonstrates proportionate access controls, comprehensive logging, and governance frameworks—exactly what NIS2 expects. Role definitions, multi-factor authentication requirements, device posture checks, and centralised audit trails all support the directive’s requirements for access control and incident response capabilities.
What about devices that cannot run agents?
Deploy inline isolation hardware for printers, IoT devices, and industrial equipment. This approach allows only defined communication flows while maintaining Zero Trust security controls. These devices become safely isolated rather than remaining as potential entry points for attackers.
How long does a typical migration take?
Timeline varies based on environment complexity, but mid-market organisations with established identity and networking foundations can typically complete a phased migration over several months. The key is starting with a focused pilot, demonstrating value quickly, and expanding systematically rather than attempting a big-bang cutover.
