Zero Trust Network Access

Buyer’s Guide to

Table of Contents

01 Introduction: Massive Workplace Changes Shake Up Private Access

02 Why Traditional Remote Work Security Doesn’t Deliver

03 Zero Trust Network Access

04 Seven Essential ZTNA Capabilities

05 How Check Point Helps

Introduction: Massive Workplace Changes Shake Up Private Access The legacy enterprise perimeter is no more. Not only because more people started working remotely but because applications now live everywhere. Today’s access decisions must account not only for who the user is, but which device they’re on, the app they’re reaching, and where they’re connecting from. Traditional access models that weren’t built for this reality end up expanding the attack surface; these models implicitly trust users and devices on the network and are unable to detect whether they drift out of compliance.

Globally, cyber attacks were 44% higher in 2024 than the year prior, with the average number of weekly attacks hitting 1,673 per organization, according to Check Point Research. Every day organizations experience business- impacting cyberattacks or compromises, resulting in the loss of customer, employee, or other confidential data; interruption of day-to-day operations; ransomware payout; financial loss or theft; and theft of intellectual property.

With remote access essential for business continuity, cyber attackers are always looking to capitalize on vulnerabilities. Attacks through employee- owned devices, supply chain partners, and weak cloud security are just a few of the reasons that organizations need a new approach to secure remote access.

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https://engage.checkpoint.com/security-report-2025

BYOD Increases Risk

Unmanaged, employee-owned devices pose significant risk. Because their risk posture is not known, they can easily infect networks and assets with malware and open the door to threats. Check Point research shows that around 70% of organizations require access from BYOD. Yet often these users aren’t subject to Zero Trust controls to ensure least privilege access to sensitive data and resources.

Supply Chain Attacks Cost Big

Employees aren’t the only ones who need access to corporate resources. Third-party partners, contractors, and vendors also need access to applications, servers, and databases with varying levels of sensitivity. Without Zero Trust secure remote access, risk increases—along with consequences.

Cloud Environments Targeted

The move to remote work accelerated cloud initiatives for many organizations. Cloud data centers and production environments provide anywhere-anytime access but invite attack through weak security practices and exposed infrastructure and credentials. Credential-theft malware surged 58% last year, according to Check Point’s 2025 Cyber Security Report.

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https://engage.checkpoint.com/security-report-2025

Traditional Remote Work Security Isn’t Delivering Traditionally, organizations have relied on Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) and on-prem appliances to secure access to networks and applications. However, they are typically deployed as one-size-fits-all solutions. Not everybody accessing company resources needs- or should have-the same level of access to applications with the same permissions. With widespread secure remote access now a requirement for doing business, VPNs aren't keeping up.

Inability to Scale Organizations can't quickly configure and scale VPN connections to cope with high numbers of employees suddenly working remotely due to an emergency or thanks to seasonal spikes in traffic. Scaling on demand while simultaneously ensuring uninterrupted connectivity is nearly impossible without significant additional investment.

Access Without Visibility A VPN-based remote access approach typically permits broad network access, putting the organization at increased risk of lateral movement by potential threat actors. Worse, IT has no central visibility into what users are actually doing in the network or with applications.

Impractical for Third Parties and BYOD For most organizations, it's simply not practical or desirable to install and maintain VPN clients on BYOD and partner devices.

Performance Suffers A VPN implementation usually backhauls all traffic to the data center, leading to throughput slowdowns, and poor performance for low-latency applications.

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VPN-to-Cloud Complexity VPNs don't scale easily across multitudes of servers, cloud providers, and hybrid architectures. For example, setting up numerous AWS Virtual Private Clouds (VPCs) with an on-premises VPN is complex.

High Overhead Relying on VPNs to secure entire workforces, networks, and applications incurs high operational overhead. They require additional hardware, software updates, and management resources.

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Zero Trust Network Access Why Secure Access with Zero Trust? Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) is software-defined functionality that enables secure access to networks and applications. The concept evolved from traditional security measures but flips the concept of trust on its head. Instead of assuming that users and devices working on the network are trustworthy, a Zero Trust model says, "never trust, always verify."

ZTNA models: • Authenticate every device and user, no matter where they are located

• Limit access on an application-by-application basis

• Apply granular in-app controls and authorization

• Hide unauthorized applications from the user and internet to minimize lateral movement

• Continuously monitor user activity

Gartner defines ZTNA as a product or service that creates an identity- and context-based, logical-access boundary around an application or set of applications. The applications are hidden from discovery, and access is restricted via a trust broker to a set of named entities. The broker verifies the identity, context, and policy adherence of the specified participants before allowing access and prohibits lateral movement elsewhere in the network.

Never trust Always verify

Never trust. Always verify.

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Private Access

Cloud

On-Prem Data Center

Remote User

Office

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How Zero Trust Works

Agentless Access Users connect using only a browser. Users first authenticate to the ZTNA service using their current identity provider or directly to the service itself.

Agent-based Access Typically deployed to managed devices, agent-based ZTNA uses a secure, cloud-based connection to resources, device posture check, and firewall- as-a-service access rules to ensure users can connect to the applications they require without overly permissive access to the entire network.

Zero Trust Service Regardless of how users connect, their access into the data center or cloud environment is always subject to an organization's zero-trust access policy, enforced by the cloud trust broker.

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Zero Trust Must-Haves Key zero trust principles that must be supported include:

• Access policies restricted to individual users or user groups

• Application-based access policies (not just network-level ones)

• Device security posture validation

• Use of a trust broker that sits between the user and the application

• No direct access to the corporate network

• Private applications are not visible to the Internet

• Simultaneous connections to different locations

More than simply a VPN replacement, ZTNA is a critical element for modern security architectures because it ensures any user on any device—whether inside or outside the organization’s network-is authenticated, authorized, and continuously validated for security configuration and posture while accessing applications and data.

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Seven Essential ZTNA Capabilities

01. Ensure Support for All Users

02. Ensure Support for All Target Resources

The ZTNA solution should secure access for all users—employees with managed devices, BYOD devices, and third-party partners. Client-based access capabilities are ideal for securing employees using managed devices. For employees using their own devices (BYOD, mobile devices) and third- party partners, look for a clientless architecture to enable secure access without requiring an agent. Access should be easy and intuitive for a good user experience.

Ensure the ZTNA solution will support all of the organization's critical applications and resources. Web apps are typically easy to support when enabling zero trust remote access. However, most organizations also need to enable Zero Trust access to SSH terminals, SQL databases, remote desktops (RDP), servers, cloud production environments, microservices, and virtual private clouds.

Tip #01: Consider piloting a ZTNA solution for a specific use case such as third- party partner access or R&D access to multi-cloud environments.

Tip #02: • Ask how the prospective ZTNA

solution supports agent-based and agentless access.

• Ask the vendor if they offer granular, application-level authorization or R&D access to multi-cloud environments.

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03. Ensure Rapid Rollout and Time-to-Value

04. Ensure Easy Operation

Organizations cite VPN replacement as their primary motivation for evaluating ZTNA offerings, but find that justification comes from risk reduction, not from cost savings. Significant risk reduction is of huge value, but so is rapid deployment. Look for capabilities such as out-of-the-box integration with identity providers (IdPs) or support for SAML 2.0 or SCIM. Intuitive, granular policy configuration enables rapid productivity without extensive training.

IT and security talent shortages make it essential to choose a ZTNA solution that delivers maximum value with minimum maintenance and no need to hire additional staff. Cloud-based solutions with a unified console are easy to use and deliver visibility across all ZTNA use cases, enabling teams to be productive immediately without extensive training. Cloud-based ZTNA services eliminate the need to maintain hardware and software. Internal teams achieve business resiliency without the need to manage backups, restoration, disaster recovery, and high-availability to resources.

Tip #03: • Ask for a deployment time estimate

• Ask to see how admins can define and deploy new policies

• Ask how many consoles the solution requires you to manage

• Ask if any additional hardware or software is required

Tip #04: During the platform demo ask yourself how easy it would be to implement policies and monitor user activity

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05. Ensure High Performance and Service Availability

The ZTNA service must deliver close to 99.999% uptime and high performance backed by SLAs. Look for a global network of points of presence (PoPs) with redundancy in each zone. Location-based routing can accelerate connectivity for users to ensure high application performance.

06. Ensure Zero Trust Security Soundness

In a least-privilege access model, users, applications, and devices are given only the minimal level of access required to perform their job. This limits lateral movement if attackers breach defenses. Look for solutions that separate control and data planes, hide applications from the internet until authentication, and support device posture checks. Optimally, user and device behavior are monitored for abnormal activity, with policy enforcement in real time.

ZTNA solutions provide deeper visibility and control than traditional VPN solutions. Look for granular in-app controls, such as read-only and write permissions, and policies at the command and query levels. Integrated advanced sandboxing, cloud IPS, and DLP can further protect data and prevent exploitation.

Tip #05: • Ask about SLA guarantees

for service availability and maintenance

• Ensure the service has availability zones near your facilities including headquarters, branch offices, manufacturing plants, warehouses, retail stores, and other locations

• Determine which compliance standards you require and how the service helps you achieve those aims

Tip #06: • Ask how solution supports least-

privilege access

• Determine which attributes the solutions offers for device posture

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07. Part of a Future-Ready Secure Access Service Edge

Tip #07: Ask if the solution is part of a complete SASE offering

With the need to simplify management and consolidate point products, the concept of a Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) is gaining traction. This approach creates an extensible future-ready, single-vendor solution that encompasses technologies like Secure Web Gateway (SWG), ZTNA, SaaS Security (CASB), and SD-WAN. Organizations should consider whether their SASE solution can extend to securing branch and business site access, Internet access for remote users, and SaaS applications. Securing remote ZTNA is a critical step toward enabling your network security modernization.

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On-Prem Data Center

Remote User

Office

Private Access

SaaS Security

Internet Access

Cloud Workloads

Web

SD-WAN SD-WAN

On-Device Protection

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How Check Point Helps Discover Check Point SASE Check Point SASE is a cloud-delivered solution, complete with ZTNA, Secure Web Gateway, SaaS Security, Firewall as a Service, and SD-WAN. Check Point SASE makes it simple to securely connect to corporate applications, SaaS, and the internet for any user or branch and from any device anywhere.

Check Point SASE Private Access -

ZTNA Your Way Check Point SASE Private Access deploys quickly and enforces an identity-centric zero trust access policy to secure any corporate application residing in the data center or the cloud. By integrating with enterprise identity providers, user access is secured by single sign on and multi-factor authentication, with additional assurance offered by device posture check.

The service comes in three flavors: • Agent-based Access: Ideal for managed

devices. Agent-based access offers Zero Trust access over a global, high-performance backbone. It supports other Check Point SASE products including Internet Access for complete online protection and SaaS Security.

• Agentless Access: Ideal for employee-owned devices and third-party partners. Enables secure access via a web portal to assets such as applications, databases, remote desktops, and SSH servers

• Enterprise Browser: An extension of Agentless Access, Enterprise Browser offers deeper Zero Trust controls for unmanaged devices without the need for a full agent. Enterprise Browser installs just like any other browser but creates a secure environment for accessing corporate data that is separated from the rest of the device.

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Simple cloud-delivered deployment

High-performance global backbone

Agent and agentless access modes

Intuitive admin and user interfaces for an exceptional user experience

Unified management with single client for Internet and Private access

Why Check Point SASE Private Access Check Point SASE provides a solid level of Zero Trust features and controls with a smooth user experience for administrators and end users alike.

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Explore What Check Point SASE Private Access Can Do for You

• Zero Trust corporate access - Learn how to implement zero trust corporate access quickly and easily

• Third-party access - Enable secure access for contractors and partners to sensitive applications and data

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