A recent report reveals that organizations have concerns about their network security due to the risks from VPNs.

In the new annual VPN Risk Report, released by Zscaler, Inc. and produced by Cybersecurity Insiders, is based on a survey of 382 IT and cybersecurity professionals in multiple industries and explores their security and user experience challenges.

Key report highlights

• 92% of survey respondents recognize the importance of adopting a Zero Trust architecture
• 88% of organizations express deep concern over potential breaches due to VPN vulnerabilities.
• Organizations are most concerned with possible phishing attacks (49%) and ransomware attacks (40%) as a result of regular VPN usage.
• Nearly half of the organizations reported they have been targeted by cyber attackers who were able to exploit a VPN vulnerability like outdated protocols or data leaks, with one in five experiencing an attack in the past year.
• 33% of organization have fallen victim to ransomware attacks on VPNs within the past year.
• 90% of organizations are still highly concerned about third-party vendors being exploited by attackers to gain indirect backdoor access into their networks. Outside users like contractors and vendors serve as potential risks to the organization due to varied security standards, a lack of visibility into their network security practices, and the complexity of managing external third-party access.
• 72% of users are dissatisfied with their current VPN experience due to slow and unreliable connections. 25% are frustrated by sluggish application speeds, while 21% face frequent connection disruptions.