ZTNA

How it works

• Checks who you are (with MFA) and whether your device is healthy before every connection.
• Connects you to one app or system at a time, instead of the whole office network.
• Keeps checking during the session and can cut access the moment something changes.
• Often replaces the old office VPN.

What can go wrong (example scenario)

A small accounting firm gave staff a VPN so they could work from home. One employee's home PC had malware. Once connected, it could see every computer and the file server in the office, and it spread overnight.

How WILDCARD handles it

ZTNA is the remote-access part of Zero Trust. Identity Monitor watches every sign-in, and Network covers the office firewall and how remote access reaches it. Whether ZTNA should replace your VPN is a vCIO decision, scoped to how your team works.

• A bookkeeper working from home reaches the accounting app, and nothing else on the office network.
• A contractor gets access to one project folder for three months, then it expires on its own.
• A lost laptop is marked unhealthy and blocked from every app within minutes.

Example scenario: A small engineering firm moved from a VPN to app-by-app access. When a staff member's home router was compromised, the attacker saw a login page and nothing behind it.

A question owners ask

Is a VPN not good enough?

A VPN encrypts the connection, which is good. The risk is what it connects you to: usually the whole network. ZTNA narrows that to the apps each person needs.