Aviatrix Blog 
Edge infrastructure—VPNs, firewalls, routers—used to be the front line of defense. Now, they’re the entry point for attackers.
According to Verizon’s 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report (DBIR), attacks targeting edge devices and VPNs grew nearly 8x year over year, now accounting for 22% of all exploitation attempts.1 Adversaries are exploiting under-patched, under-monitored systems that enterprises once relied on for protection.
Even CISA Director Jen Easterly has warned: edge devices represent “the soft underbelly” of modern networks.
Why It Matters
When an edge device is compromised, it gives attackers a foothold inside the network. From there, they can move laterally, discover sensitive systems, exfiltrate data, or deploy ransomware. These devices are no longer just security tools—they’re attack surfaces. And as the DBIR shows, attackers know it.
Legacy perimeter defenses are failing. And the breach math is getting worse. According to the report:
- 22% of exploited vulnerabilities in 2024 involved edge appliances
- Median patch lag for edge infrastructure: 32 days
- Only 54% of known vulnerabilities were patched within a year
- Credential abuse remains the leading breach vector at 22%2
These trends underscore a hard truth: network security must evolve beyond the edge.
Why Zero Trust Must Extend Into the Network
Zero Trust assumes breach and verifies every connection—across users, devices, applications, and networks. But most implementations stop at identity and endpoint controls.
The DBIR makes it clear: the network is a primary attack path. That’s why Zero Trust needs to be enforced inside the network itself.
Aviatrix delivers Cloud Network Security, embedding Zero Trust directly into the network data plane. From segmentation to encrypted overlays and traffic visibility, Aviatrix enforces policy where attackers move and where sensitive data flows.
How Aviatrix Mitigates the Top Edge Threats in the 2025 DBIR
| 2025 DBIR Insight | Zero Trust Gap | ZTMM 2.0 Pillar | How Aviatrix Mitigates the Risk |
| Exploited edge devices up 8x | Flat networks behind vulnerable perimeter devices | Network | Aviatrix Cloud Firewall + SmartGroups: Isolate workloads and stop lateral movement post-breach. Encrypted overlays via Aviatrix HPE (High-Performance Encryption): Secure east-west and hybrid traffic using FIPS 140-2 validated IPSec tunnels—at 10–100 Gbps line-rate performance with multi-core scale-out. Software-based enforcement: Eliminates vulnerable appliance choke points. |
| 32-day patch lag (edge appliances) | Slow, manual remediation cycles | Automation & Orchestration | Automation & Orchestration — Eliminate manual delays with API-driven workflows that apply security updates instantly across all environments. Cloud-Native Control Plane — A centralized, software-defined control plane enables proactive responses without relying on hardware refresh cycles. Graceful Infrastructure Upgrades — Aviatrix’s controller-based architecture orchestrates infrastructure updates automatically, minimizing downtime and risk while maintaining continuous security enforcement. |
| Credential abuse (22%) | Once inside, attackers move freely | Applications & Workloads | Identity-aware segmentation: Tags and workload identities define what resources entities can access — without relying on user credentials like passwords or keys. East-west policy enforcement: Blocks internal traversal between apps and services to contain breaches. |
| BYOD / unmanaged devices | Weak ingress and no outbound controls | Data & Network | Secure Ingress with next-generation firewalls (Transit FireNet): Enforces inline inspection before traffic hits workloads. Policy-based segmentation: Only approved sessions reach critical services. Secure Egress: Stops data exfiltration and C2 callbacks. |
| Third-party breaches doubled | Vendors too trusted, hard to monitor | Network & Governance | B2B segmentation: Creates isolated, least-privilege paths for partner access. Egress allow-listing: Restricts vendor traffic to sanctioned services and destinations. CoPilot flow monitoring: Provides real-time visibility into third-party behavior. |
Zero Trust in Action: Secure Your Business with Aviatrix
Network Pillar: Secure Cloud Network Architecture
Aviatrix empowers you to create a secure cloud network architecture through network segmentation, encryption, routing control, and software-defined enforcement:
- Micro-segmentation with SmartGroups —Isolates workloads and blocks lateral movement, reducing blast radius and compliance scope (e.g., NIST 800-53, PCI DSS).
- Encrypted overlays powered by Aviatrix HPE (high-performance encryption) — Delivers line-rate, multi-core encryption across all traffic flows without degrading performance or visibility. Protects east-west, inter-cloud, and hybrid traffic with FIPS 140-2 validated encryption.
- Automated failover and routing control — Increases application resilience, reduces downtime, and supports SLA continuity.
- Software-defined enforcement model — Eliminates patch delays and operational overhead of managing legacy edge devices.
Applications & Workloads Pillar: Secure Access That Scales
With Aviatrix, you can offer users secure access that scales as your organization grows.
- Least-privilege access at the network layer — Limits service-to-service communication to only what’s explicitly allowed, rendering credential misuse ineffective.
- Inline NGFW integration (Transit FireNet) — Simplifies threat inspection across environments and unlocks the full value of your NGFW investment.
- SAML-based user-to-app access — Aligns network policies with corporate IAM systems for Zero Trust user access.
Data Pillar: Secure Access, Flow, and Exfiltration Control
The Aviatrix solution gives you centralized control over secure access, traffic flows, and the data that leaves your network, empowering you to stop data exfiltration by threat actors.
- Segmented data zones by policy and tag — Prevents overexposure of sensitive resources and supports data sovereignty.
- Uniform encryption of all in-transit data with HPE (high-performance encryption) — Enables enterprise-wide Zero Trust encryption that scales with business performance, even across high-throughput or multicloud environments.
- Secure Egress + CoPilot visibility — Stops unsanctioned uploads, detects anomalous flows, and provides an auditable trail of data movement.
B2B Segmentation — Isolate Third-Party Risk Without Blocking Business
As third-party breaches double, Aviatrix allows enterprises to maintain agility while minimizing risk:
- Segment vendors from internal workloads
- Limit access to only required apps, APIs, or data
- Route all external partner traffic through inspectable, policy-enforced paths
- Log and audit everything with CoPilot
This is Zero Trust applied to supply chain exposure: a must for any modern security strategy.
Edge Security Is Now a Board-Level Concern
Attackers don’t start at your core, they start at your edge. And they move quickly.
The 2025 Verizon DBIR confirms it: edge devices are not just entry points—they’re risk amplifiers. That’s why edge visibility and control must become board-level security priorities.
Aviatrix brings Zero Trust into the network.
- Segment everything
- Encrypt everything
- Automate everything
- Control what comes in and what flows out
Waiting until the next breach is a strategy for headlines, not resilience. Get ahead of the attackers. Explore our Secure High-Performance Datacenter Edge solution and schedule a demo today.
1 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, page 10
2 2025 Data Breach Investigations Report, page 10