This article was originally published in the Business Post in September 2026 as part of their Cybersecurity report. Read the original article here.
Datapac, in partnership with HPE Aruba.
Across many Irish organisations, traditional remote-access VPNs have become a significant cybersecurity weak point. A VPN solved the problem when people first needed to work from home or on the road, and because it answered the question, many considered remote access a solved issue thereafter. However, the reality is that this same setup which makes remote working possible has now, in many instances, created one of the softest parts of an organisation’s defences.
How a VPN increases your exposure
A VPN places a remote worker onto the corporate network, giving them much the same reach they would have at their desk. That convenience has a cost: a VPN needs open ports on the organisation’s firewall to function, which means a route through it can bypass many of the security controls already in place. So if a single set of credentials is stolen or a vulnerability is exploited, an attacker inherits the same broad access as an employee, which is no different in practice from breaking into the office and logging in at someone’s desk.
A remote-access model built for how people work now
A more recent approach, known as Zero Trust and delivered through services such as HPE Aruba Networking Security Service Edge (SSE), is built around a different principle. Instead of putting a person onto the network, it gives them access only to the specific applications they need to do their job. The practical effect is that a compromised account exposes a handful of applications rather than the entire network. Access can also be granted or withdrawn cleanly as people join, move or leave, which is particularly useful for organisations relying on temporary or contract staff. And because the connection is direct, employees get a quicker, steadier experience wherever they work.
What insurers now want to see
The question is no longer purely technical. Datapac increasingly sees remote-access arrangements raised on cyber-insurance renewal questionnaires, where identity-based access is treated as the stronger position and a traditional VPN as the weaker one. It is likely that this question will become more common in the years ahead, and organisations must be prepared to answer it.
Where to begin
A sound move to Zero Trust is based around an organisation’s real dependencies, and begins with an assessment of the environment already in place. That is the work Datapac does first, establishing where the real exposure lies and advising whether an approach such as HPE Aruba Networking SSE fits before any change is recommended.
If remote access in your organisation still depends on a traditional VPN, it is worth a conversation about what a safer, more workable arrangement would look like.
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