Your Apps Moved to AWS,
So Why are Your Users Still on the Network?
Time for a better approach to secure remote access.
To gain fast, secure access to Zscaler Private Access for AWS, talk to Zscaler
Network-centric security makes moving to AWS painful
Today, 60 percent of enterprises are running apps in AWS to increase scalability and speed. This move has extended the perimeter to the internet. Yet, many enterprises still rely on remote access VPNs, which are network-centric and not built to secure access to the internet. They also place users on the network and require physical or virtual appliances, which increases complexity and limits scalability.
Common pitfalls of network-centric approaches:
- Places users on the network to provide access to AWS
- Requires appliances, ACLs and FW policies
- Provides a poor end-user experience
- Inbound connections create opportunity for DDoS attacks
- Lacks the ability to provide true application segmentation


Zscaler Private Access for AWS
Enabling user and application-centric security for AWS
Zscaler Private Access (ZPA) for AWS is a cloud service from Zscaler that provides zero-trust, secure remote access to internal applications running on AWS. With ZPA, applications are never exposed to the internet, making them completely invisible to unauthorized users. The service enables the applications to connect to users via inside-out connectivity versus extending the network to them. Users are never placed on the network. It provides a software-defined perimeter for AWS, that supports any device and any internal application.
Zscaler Private Access for AWS benefits
Transform with Zscaler.
Better remote user experience
Users have fast, direct-to-cloud access without having to login to remote access VPN client each time.
Secure remote access without network access
Policy-based access, with no access to network. Visibility into apps being accessed by users and ability to discover unsanctioned apps running within AWS.
No hardware appliances, lower costs
The cloud service requires no hardware. Enterprises can easily scale across multiple AWS and Zscaler data centers with no need to replicate gateways.
Less complexity for admins
Network admins can segment based on application from within the web UI. No need to segment by network. No IP address segmentation or access control lists required.
Traffic remains private via internet network
Service uses dynamic, application-specific, TLS-based end-to-end encryption. All data remains private and enterprises can bring their own PKI.
Scale elastically, reduce latency
The service uses the global AWS network to ramp up new users and route them to the app location nearest to them via internet-based networking.
Simplify secure remote access to internal apps on AWS
AWS Native Security Groups are a good start, but they are often times manual intensive. Zscaler Private Access takes a user and application-centric approach to network security. It ensures that only authorized users and devices have access to specific internal applications on AWS. Rather than relying on physical or virtual appliances that are IP centric, ZPA uses lightweight infrastructure agnostic software to connect both users and applications to the Zscaler Security Cloud, where the brokered connection is stitched together. ZPA is complementary to AWS Native Security Groups, as well as AWS DirectConnect.

1. ZPA Public Service Edge
- Hosted in cloud
- Used for authentication
- Customizable by admins
- Brokers a secure connection between a Client Connector and App Connector
2. Zscaler Client Connector
- Mobile client installed on devices
- Requests access to an app
3. App Connector
- Sits in front of apps in the data center, Azure, AWS, and other public cloud services
- Provides inside-out TLS 1.2 connections to broker
- Makes apps invisible to prevent DDoS attacks
Discover shadow IT applications on AWS
Many enterprise teams are unaware of the sheer number of applications in their environment. ZPA identifies previously undiscovered internal applications running in the data center or on AWS infrastructure. Once identified, admins can set granular policies for each application, ensuring the environment remains secure and controlled. This, combined with ZPA’s ability to make known applications invisible to unauthorized users, reduces the attack surface dramatically.

Choose application segmentation, not network segmentation
In the past, admins needed to segment networks to ensure secure user connections. Today, enterprises use ZPA to control which users access which applications. Admins can easily set granular policies at the application level for specific users, users groups, applications, application groups and associated subdomains.
