Zscaler Zero Trust SD-WAN vs. Legacy SD-WAN

Extends the corporate network, creating implicit trust and increasing the attack surface. Enables lateral threat movement and facilitates ransomware attacks. Requires additional layered security to achieve zero trust, creating complexity.

Enforces zero trust through identity- and context-based access controls. Prevents lateral threat movement by brokering connections between users, devices, and apps as needed. Simplifies security by eliminating the need for firewalls, VPNs, and layered solutions.

Backhauls traffic to data centers, adding latency that impacts performance and user productivity. Forces tradeoffs between security and performance with local breakouts.

Improves application performance with direct-to-cloud architecture. Optimizes both security and performance without compromise.

Increases costs and complexity with the need for additional firewalls and access controls. Requires extensive personnel resources to maintain layered security solutions.

Reduces cost and complexity by eliminating the need for additional firewalls. Simplifies policy management by enforcing shared policies across remote and in-office users.

Extends the network everywhere, expanding the attack surface to branches, IoT devices and the cloud. Exposes VPN ports to the public internet, leaving networks vulnerable to attacks.

Minimizes the attack surface by hiding users, devices and applications behind the Zscaler Zero Trust Exchange™. Secures connections with no exposed VPN ports—all connections are outbound from your sites.