Figures from Zscaler show that in the past year, 56 per cent of organizations were targeted by attacks that exploit VPN vulnerabilities.
In particular, ransomware attacks (42 per cent), malware infections (35 per cent), and DDoS attacks (30 per cent) are major challenges. Of the organizations that faced VPN vulnerabilities, a majority indicated that hackers moved laterally in the network. This shows deficiencies in threat containment after the initial compromise, Zscaler points out.
“Over the past year, numerous critical VPN vulnerabilities have served as successful entry points for attacks on large enterprises and federal entities,” Zscaler CSO Deepen Desai responded.
Zscaler also named recent high-profile vulnerabilities in VPNs from major vendors. First, Ivanti, where attackers could bypass authentication and inject remote commands via CVE-2023-46805 and CVE-2024-21887. In the U.S., a directive was issued for federal organizations to disconnect compromised VPN devices immediately.
In addition, there is CVE-2024-3400 in Palo Alto Networks’ operating system. This allowed unauthorized users to exploit the system to infiltrate the network, and it received a maximum vulnerability score of 10.0.
Weak access point
Zscaler notes that VPNs traditionally provide remote network access. However, it sees the growing scale and complexity of cyber threats attacking these networks as a major concern for security teams. For example, 91 per cent of companies find VPNs to be weak access points in the IT infrastructure.
With a Zero Trust approach, Zscaler is trying to provide an alternative to VPNs. In a recent interview, Zscaler CEO Jay Chaudhry indicated to Techzine that he sees little future in a technology like VPN.