VPNs, Zero Trust, and the Mid-Market: Key Takeaways from Zscaler’s 2025 VPN Risk Report
As mid-market organizations modernize their infrastructure and embrace hybrid work, one theme keeps coming up: traditional VPNs are turning from a necessary evil into a real liability.
Zscaler’s ThreatLabz 2025 VPN Risk Report, produced with Cybersecurity Insiders, surveyed more than 600 IT and security professionals to understand how VPNs are impacting security, operations, and user experience in 2025. Zscaler
Why VPNs Are on the Way Out
The report highlights several trends that should concern any security-conscious organization:
- Rising breach exposure via VPN
Over half of surveyed organizations reported cyber incidents tied to VPN vulnerabilities in the past year. VPN appliances are highly visible on the internet, making them a favored initial access vector for ransomware operators and other threat actors. GlobeNewswire - High-severity vulnerabilities are the norm, not the exception
Analysis of recent VPN CVEs shows a growing share rated high or critical, often enabling remote code execution, privilege escalation, or authentication bypass on exposed VPN gateways. - Lateral movement amplifies the blast radius
Because VPNs drop users “onto the network,” a single compromised credential can allow attackers to move laterally across systems, escalate privileges, and access sensitive data well beyond the original entry point. - Third-party and supply-chain risk
The report notes strong concern about vendor and partner VPN tunnels becoming backdoors into corporate environments—especially when access is broad and poorly segmented. - Operational drag and user frustration
Slow connections, frequent disconnects, and clunky authentication drive user workarounds and generate constant tickets for IT. Maintaining, patching, and scaling VPN concentrators consumes time and budget that could be spent on more strategic security initiatives.
The Shift to Zero Trust
In response, organizations are rapidly pivoting away from legacy VPN models toward Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) and broader zero trust architectures:
- 65% of organizations plan to replace VPN services within a year.
- 81% are adopting or planning to adopt a zero trust strategy on a similar timeline. Zscaler
Zero trust flips the traditional model: instead of putting users on the network and relying on perimeter controls, it grants only application-level, least-privileged access based on identity, device posture, and context, with continuous verification. This reduces the attack surface, blocks lateral movement, and typically improves performance for remote and hybrid users.
What This Means for ATG Clients
For high-performance mid-market organizations, the message is clear:
- Treat VPNs as a legacy technology to be strategically retired, not expanded.
- Prioritize identity-centric, zero trust access for both employees and third parties.
- Use this transition to simplify your security stack, reduce operational overhead, and align access controls with real business risk.
As your Technology Performance Partner, Adams Technology Group helps clients plan and execute this transition—from VPN-centric architectures to zero trust models that better match today’s threat landscape and performance expectations.
Learn More about why you should Retire Your VPN.
Source & Attribution: This summary and commentary are based on the Zscaler ThreatLabz 2025 VPN Risk Report, commissioned by Cybersecurity Insiders and published by Zscaler, Inc.
Read the full report on Cybersecurity Insiders: Zscaler ThreatLabz 2025 VPN Risk Report Cybersecurity Insiders