The traditional VPN has become a security liability in a world of remote work and cloud applications. Microsoft Entra Private Access offers a modern Zero Trust alternative that is both more secure and more user-friendly.
The VPN has served as the standard solution for secure corporate network access for many years. But the way we work has fundamentally changed. Employees work from home, from coffee shops, from client sites. Applications run in the cloud rather than on a local server. In this new reality, the VPN is showing its weaknesses.
A VPN grants broad network access upon successful connection. If an attacker steals the credentials of a VPN user — through phishing or a data breach — that same attacker immediately gains access to a large portion of the corporate network. This principle is called implicit trust and is the core of the VPN security problem.
Traditional VPN solutions are also burdensome for IT administrators: certificates expire, clients require updates, split-tunneling creates configuration complexity, and poor connection performance generates a steady stream of help desk calls.
Zero Trust is not a product but a security principle: trust no one by default, always verify, limit access to the minimum necessary. In a Zero Trust model, a user has no access to the broad network but only to the specific applications and resources they need, following continuous verification of identity and device health.
Microsoft Entra Private Access is Microsoft's implementation of Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA). It is part of the Entra Suite and replaces the VPN with application-level access based on identity and device compliance.
How does it work in practice? An employee opens an application or resource. Entra Private Access verifies identity through Entra ID, checks whether the device meets the Intune compliance policy, evaluates the Conditional Access policy, and then grants access exclusively to that specific application — not to the entire network.
This means that a stolen account or a compromised device never gives an attacker broad access to the corporate network. The blast radius of an incident is drastically reduced.
The user experience improves significantly. There is no VPN client to connect, no inactivity timeout, no split-tunneling to configure. Access is seamless and transparent, comparable to working in the office.
For IT administrators, management is simpler: access rules are centrally managed in Entra, combined with existing Conditional Access and Intune compliance policies. There is one place for identity-driven access control.
If your organisation has remote employees who need access to on-premises applications or internal networks, Entra Private Access is a serious option for replacing the VPN. It requires the Entra Suite licence and a well-configured Entra ID environment as a foundation.
Want to know whether Entra Private Access fits your organisation and what a migration from VPN looks like? Contact Zarioh Digital Solutions.
