VPN vs. ZTNA: Why CIOs need to rethink remote access in 2026 

A wave of critical vulnerabilities, emergency directives from cybersecurity agencies, and ransomware campaigns fueled by stolen VPN credentials: the first half of 2026 pushed remote access to the top of every CIO's priority list. Beyond the patches that had to be applied in a hurry, these incidents raise a deeper question: is the VPN model itself — built on exposing an entry point to the internet — still fit for purpose? Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), and its universal approach in particular, offers an architectural answer to what is a structural problem. Here's a closer look.

The VPN: a model that served its purpose but has reached its limits

For over twenty years, the VPN was the standard answer to remote access: an authentication portal exposed to the internet that, once you log in, opens an encrypted tunnel into the corporate network. This model worked perfectly in a world where users were mostly in the office and applications lived in the data center.

That world no longer exists. Widespread remote work, applications spread across data centers and clouds, a growing number of third-party providers and unmanaged devices: the traffic that needs securing has diversified — and so have the layers piled up over the years: VPNs for employees, bastion hosts for administrators, reverse proxies for third parties. Each layer adds operational complexity and, above all, another exposed surface.

2026 : the proof is in the facts

Recent events are a concrete illustration of this fragility. According to Verizon's 2026 DBIR, which analyzes more than 22,000 breaches, exploiting vulnerabilities is now attackers' leading vector for initial access. And exposed remote-access appliances are their prime target :

• An authentication bypass (CVSS 9.8) on one of the most widely deployed SSL-VPN gateways on the market. The flaw let an unauthenticated attacker get past the login page and obtain network access. Roughly 47,000 devices were exposed on the internet; on February 26, 2026, the U.S. agency CISA issued a binding directive requiring the affected services to be patched or disabled within 72 hours.

• A large-scale credential-theft campaign (June–July 2026). Around 74,000 stolen firewall and VPN credentials were in circulation, and at least 12 organizations were hit by ransomware deployed through compromised devices, according to SOCRadar. Notably, this campaign relied on no new vulnerability — the mere existence of an exposed login portal was enough to make it a target for credential replay and brute-force attacks.

• A critical vulnerability exploited in under 24 hours. In late June 2026, a flaw affecting a widely used remote-access gateway was exploited within 24 hours of public disclosure, according to Lupovis — just weeks after two other flaws in the same appliance were added to CISA's KEV (Known Exploited Vulnerabilities) catalog.

• Remote code execution with root privileges (CVSS 10.0). A pre-authentication command injection on an enterprise mobility gateway, actively exploited and added to the KEV catalog on June 11, 2026, with public exploit code and compromised instances confirmed by the Shadowserver Foundation

• An authentication bypass via deprecated VPN configurations. On another major security gateway, obsolete key-exchange configurations (IKEv1) allowed unauthorized VPN connections to be established, with observed links to a Qilin ransomware affiliate.

To be clear : these incidents affected several major, well-established vendors, all of which are issuing fixes, publishing security advisories, and cooperating with the agencies. The point here isn't the diligence of any one vendor. Several leading appliances, one and the same attack pattern: that's the sign of a problem with the model, not with a supplier.

Why legacy access architectures are structurally fragile

Traditional access architectures rest on assumptions that today's environment calls into question. Four structural limits stand out from the 2026 incidents :

• An attack surface exposed by design.A VPN has to listen on the internet so users can connect to it. That login page can be identified with a simple scan, and every new vulnerability instantly turns tens of thousands of devices into targets.

• Network access rather than application access. Once the tunnel is up, the user — or the attacker who stole their credentials — reaches a network segment that is often poorly segmented. That's the launch point for the lateral movement that precedes a ransomware deployment.

• A critical dependence on patching speed. When a vulnerability is exploited in under 24 hours and agencies mandate fixes within 72 hours, making remote-access security hinge on how fast teams react becomes a bet that's hard to sustain over time.

• A stack that's costly to operate. VPN, bastion host, reverse proxy: that's a lot of solutions to administer, maintain, and patch — with as many exposed surfaces as there are components.

ZTNA : flipping the access model

Zero Trust Network Access rests on a simple reversal: no one enters the network anymore; instead, applications are published, one by one, to users who are continuously verified. Three principles follow :

• Never trust by default. Identity, device, and context are verified on every request, not just once when the tunnel is set up.

• Application-level least privilege. The user reaches their application, never the network. A stolen credential opens nothing on its own, and never opens everything.

• Invisibility.What isn't exposed can't be scanned or attacked.

It's this last point that directly answers the 2026 wave of vulnerabilities — and it's also where ZTNA implementations differ most from one another.

The universal approach : Ekinops’ U-ZTNA

Ekinops' U-ZTNA (Universal ZTNA) applies Zero Trust logic all the way through the architecture, on the SDP (Software-Defined Perimeter) model.

No inbound port, anywhere

U-ZTNA connectors establish outbound-only connections: no login portal, no admin interface, no service listening on the internet. For a scanner, a botnet, or an attacker armed with stolen credentials, there's nothing to find. The first two steps of the attack pattern seen in 2026 — scan the internet, then attack the exposed service — no longer have a target. And contrary to a common misconception, this holds for on-premises deployments too: even when hosted inside the company's perimeter, the connectors reach out; they don't listen.

Access to the application, never to the network

Identity, device posture, and context are verified continuously, on every request, integrated with the company's existing identity provider and MFA. Even a compromised account reaches only a single application: the blast radius is contained by design.

Universal, to simplify what you already have

A single access model covers the use cases that used to require the VPN-bastion-reverse-proxy stack: mobile employees, contractors, BYOD, OT environments — on any device, anywhere. Agentless access, with a built-in SSH/RDP bastion and session recording, covers the cases where deploying an agent isn't possible.

Data control and compliance

As-a-service, dedicated, or 100% on-premises deployment: both the data and the encryption keys stay under the organization's control. Designed, developed, and hosted in Europe, and not subject to extraterritorial laws such as the Cloud Act, the solution fits within GDPR requirements and supports NIS2 and DORA compliance efforts.

A gradual migration

U-ZTNA coexists with existing firewalls and VPNs, application by application, with no abrupt rip-and-replace. CIOs can migrate the most sensitive access first — administration, contractors, critical applications — and progressively shrink their exposed surface, at their own pace.

The takeaways

Where a VPN exposes a scannable login portal and grants network access after a single check, universal ZTNA presents no inbound port, grants limited access to the requested application, and verifies identity, device, and context continuously. That sharply reduces the dependence on the patch race: there's no longer an exposed service to fix in a hurry. And where remote access used to rely on a stack of solutions, a single model now covers employees, administrators, contractors, and OT environments.

Let's be precise: no architecture guarantees absolute immunity, and it would be dishonest to claim otherwise. Residual risks remain — a compromised workstation, an attack targeting the identity provider — and are addressed through continuous verification and least privilege. But the mechanism that defined 2026 — scanning the internet for a portal, exploiting the vulnerability of the day or replaying stolen credentials, then moving laterally — has no purchase on an architecture with no exposure: you can't compromise what you can't reach.

For CIOs, then, the question is no longer whether the remote-access gateway will be the target of the next critical vulnerability, but whether the organization's access model should keep depending on that possibility. Universal ZTNA offers a pragmatic way out: gradual, reversible, and aligned with European regulatory requirements.

External sources cited :

Verizon DBIR 2026; CISA (KEV — Known Exploited Vulnerabilities — catalog and binding operational directive of February 26, 2026); SOCRadar; Lupovis; Shadowserver Foundation.