For decades, VPN was the sacred cow of remote access. The one-stop solution: drop a fat encrypted tunnel over the internet and boom — your remote users are “inside.” Problem solved, right?
Except no. In 2025, VPN is basically giving every intern a master key to the building. They don’t just get into the room they need; they can wander the hallways, peek into the server room, and maybe even find the CEO’s stash of “important documents.”
Why VPN Feels Like Dial-Up in a 5G World
VPN had its time, but it’s collapsing under modern reality:
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Performance bottlenecks. All traffic backhauled through a single choke point. Congratulations, you just built a corporate LAN… in 1999.
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Scaling pain. Need to onboard 500 new contractors? Enjoy the config files, cert distribution, and angry calls when their VPN client crashes mid-demo.
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Security risk. One compromised credential = one attacker roaming your entire network like it’s Disneyland after dark.
Enter Microsoft Global Secure Access (GSA)
This isn’t “VPN, but with lipstick.” GSA is Microsoft’s attempt to rip the tunnel out of the equation and replace it with Zero Trust principles baked in:
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App-level access. No more “network = trusted.” Users connect only to apps they’re allowed, not the entire subnet. That SaaS portal? Yes. The legacy HR SQL server? Nope.
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Identity-driven controls. Entra ID policies decide who gets in. MFA, Conditional Access, device compliance, risk signals — it’s identity, not IP addresses, that define trust.
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Hybrid support. SaaS, Azure, on-prem, even old-school RDP sessions — all flow through the same GSA pipeline. No duct tape required.
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Secure Web Gateway. Built-in inspection and filtering so your users don’t accidentally click “free PDF viewer” from malwareland.ru.
From Master Keys to Digital Badges
VPN: “Here’s a master key. Don’t lose it.”
GSA: “Here’s a digital badge. It opens only the exact door you need. It expires when you leave.”
See the difference? One is a potential ransomware headline, the other is a modern access strategy that actually scales.
Why It Matters
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For security teams, it kills lateral movement. Attackers can’t “ride the tunnel” across your infrastructure.
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For users, it’s faster. No more choking a Zoom call through your London VPN gateway just to reach a cloud app hosted in Frankfurt.
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For business, it’s scalable. Identity + policies beat certificates + config files any day.
So… Goodbye VPN?
Not overnight. VPN won’t disappear tomorrow because legacy apps and crusty infrastructure still cling to it like Windows 7 in a government office. But for any organization building a hybrid, cloud-first, Zero Trust future? VPN is already the past.
Microsoft Global Secure Access isn’t just another access tool. It’s a paradigm shift: from networks as “trusted zones” to apps as the new perimeter, governed by identity.
)))) Awating
rgds,
Alex