Zero Trust & SASE
Private Access Without the VPN Risk
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Request
- 02
Policy check
- 03
Approved path
01
Requirements reviewed with your team
02
Technical fit and integrations assessed
03
Pilot scope defined around measurable outcomes
The problem
A traditional VPN authenticates a device once, then treats everything on the other side of the tunnel as trusted. That model was built for a world with one office and one data center; it doesn't hold up once your applications live across a data center, three clouds, and a SaaS stack, and your users connect from home networks and airport WiFi.
The structural weakness isn't a specific exploit, it's the architecture itself: once a VPN session is live, the connecting device typically has network-layer reach to everything else on that segment, whether or not it needs it. A single stolen credential or an unpatched laptop stops being a contained incident and becomes a foothold for lateral movement.
VPN concentrators also centralize traffic through a small number of hardware endpoints, which means every remote session pays a latency tax for hairpinning through a data center that may be nowhere near the user or the application they're trying to reach.
How MaskFlare Access works
MaskFlare Access connects a user directly to the one application they're authorized for, never to the network it sits on. Every connection is evaluated per request against identity, device posture, and policy, and routed through the nearest point on the Flare Mesh instead of hairpinning through a central concentrator.
Benefits
No lateral movement by default
Access is granted to a specific application, not a subnet. A compromised device can't scan or reach anything it wasn't explicitly authorized to see.
One identity, every app
Employees, contractors, and service accounts authenticate once against your identity provider and reach every authorized app through the same policy layer.
No VPN concentrators to size or patch
Nothing to size for peak concurrent sessions, no hardware to patch on a fire drill after the next VPN CVE.
Contractors without a company laptop
Clientless access to internal web apps and admin tools for third parties, scoped to exactly what they were contracted to touch.
Faster than backhauling traffic
Requests route through the nearest Flare Mesh point of presence to the application, not through a single regional VPN gateway.
DLP evaluated inline
Sensitive data leaving a session is inspected by MaskFlare Vault in the same policy pass, not as a separate bolted-on tool.
Capabilities
Application segmentation
Every internal application is published individually behind Access, invisible to anyone not explicitly granted a policy to reach it — no open ports, no network-level discovery.
Workload-to-workload microsegmentation
The same identity-based policy model extends to service-to-service traffic inside your own infrastructure, so a compromised workload can't move laterally between services either.
Privileged remote access
Clientless RDP, SSH, and VNC sessions to servers and admin interfaces, recorded and scoped per session without exposing the underlying network.
Layer 7 inspection
Policy decisions read the actual application request — what a user is doing — rather than stopping at the IP and port a connection happens to arrive on.
Integrated data loss prevention
Sensitive data moving through an Access session is inspected in line by MaskFlare Vault's DLP engine, without a second agent or a separate policy console.
State of VPN Risk Report
An upcoming FlareLabz report on VPN-related breach patterns and lateral-movement risk, sourced from MaskFlare's own commissioned research rather than a competitor's numbers. Not yet published.
Explore related capabilities
See how the capabilities planned for MaskFlare address adjacent security and privacy requirements.
Related from Flarepedia
Frequently asked questions
What is zero trust network access (ZTNA)?
ZTNA is an access model where every connection to an application is authenticated and authorized individually, based on identity and device posture, rather than granting broad network access after a single login the way a VPN does.
How is MaskFlare Access different from a VPN?
A VPN puts a device on your network. Access connects a user to one specific application and nothing else — there's no shared network segment for an attacker to move across even if a session is compromised.
Does Access require installing an agent?
Managed devices typically run a lightweight connector for full network-level app access. Unmanaged devices and third parties can reach web-based internal apps and admin tools clientless, through a browser.
Can contractors get access without a company-issued laptop?
Yes. Clientless access scopes a contractor to exactly the applications named in their policy, from any browser, without joining your network or installing software.
Does MaskFlare Access replace our firewall?
Access replaces the remote-access use case a VPN currently serves. It complements, rather than replaces, perimeter and internal network security controls you already run.
How does Access handle legacy on-premises applications?
A lightweight connector deployed alongside the application publishes it to Access without requiring inbound firewall rules or exposing it directly to the internet.
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