What to Do When Your VPN Provider Suffers from Zero-Day Vulnerabilities
A virtual private network (VPN) is one of the most common methods to allow employees working remotely to access IT resources over the public internet. It protects your data by establishing a connection between your device and a remote server, and also hides your IP address and encrypts your data. VPNs have been around for decades and are widely used across all industries.
They do have certain disadvantages; misconfigured VPNs can allow a user to access an entire corporate network rather than only required resources, which makes it easy for malicious actors who gain access to the VPN to move laterally within the network and discover potential attack targets.
The other concerning security challenge is when a VPN vendor’s solution is impacted with zero-day vulnerabilities. If you rely on a VPN as your secure means of remote access, and your VPN is no longer secure, what are the alternatives? These types of vulnerabilities can create significant risks and threats, especially if they are exploited by adversaries to gain network access that lets them deploy ransomware or malware.
A more secure replacement for VPNs
Akamai offers Enterprise Application Access, a robust Zero Trust Network Access solution that is a more secure replacement for VPNs. It provides secure access without exposing organizations to VPN vulnerabilities. Akamai Enterprise Application Access grants users role-based access to specific applications based on identity and context, and not to entire networks or network segments, as VPN tunnels can.
With Enterprise Application Access, you can configure new applications and users through a single portal in a matter of minutes. It integrates with an organization’s existing identity service and supports applications hosted in on-premises data centers, and public and private cloud, and can provide adaptive application access based on real-time threat signals and device posture information.
Because it is a cloud-delivered service, there are no physical appliances to maintain, and it can be scaled quickly to accommodate new applications or increase the number of users. Enterprise Application Access is built on Akamai Connected Cloud, which allows Akamai’s global CDN to be used to ensure that application access is performant and delivers an exceptional end-user experience.
Find out more
For more information on how Enterprise Application Access can replace or reduce the use of VPNs in your organization, please contact us or give it a test run by signing up for a trial.
