Then there’s the biggest expense: the average $4.4 million cost of a data breach. Business disruption and customer recovery drive this figure higher, with reputational damage alone averaging $1.47 million. In severe cases, companies have faced damages exceeding a billion dollars.
2025’s Turning Point: Escaping the Cybersecurity Tax
A growing number of companies are breaking free from these hidden costs by replacing legacy VPNs with software-defined mesh networks. When Cloudflare’s major outage hit in June, most of the internet went dark — except for organizations already using decentralized architectures. These companies continued operating seamlessly, having eliminated the single point of failure that traditional VPNs depend on.
According to the Cybersecurity Insiders 2025 VPN Exposure Report, 48% of businesses using VPNs have already suffered breaches. In contrast, alternatives like ZeroTier are quickly gaining ground. The company ended 2024 with over 5,000 paid accounts and now supports 2.5 million connected devices across 230 countries. Its consistent double-digit quarterly revenue growth shows that enterprises are embracing change — and backing it financially.
The Competitive Edge of Going VPN-Free
Organizations shifting away from VPNs aren’t just improving security — they’re gaining a cost advantage. Traditional VPNs were designed for small, centralized teams in the 1990s. Today’s global workforce spans continents, cloud platforms, and contractors. That single-bridge network design now costs businesses in three key ways:
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Operational Overhead: Multiple incompatible VPNs, recurring hardware replacements, and per-user fees that scale with headcount. IT teams spend excessive time on access management instead of innovation.
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Insurance Premiums: Legacy VPN users face 15–25% annual insurance increases as breach risks rise. Past incidents — from Colonial Pipeline to Collins Aerospace — show just how damaging VPN vulnerabilities can be.
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Breach Exposure: Nearly half of VPN-dependent firms have already paid the breach price, suffering payroll halts, SLA penalties, and costly SEC disclosures.
Inside the Architecture Shift
The emerging alternative — software-defined mesh networking — works differently. Instead of channeling all traffic through one gateway, these systems create direct, encrypted peer-to-peer connections between devices.
ZeroTier’s approach illustrates this model well: each device gets a unique cryptographic ID, enabling secure, direct communication. A controller handles authentication, while data itself never passes through a centralized chokepoint.
“With Internet-connected devices outnumbering humans by a factor of three, the need for secure connectivity is skyrocketing,” says Andrew Gault, CEO of ZeroTier. “But most enterprises are paying a massive tax to legacy architectures that create more problems than they solve.”
When Cloudflare’s systems failed, organizations using these mesh networks remained online. Each device could access only what it needed, minimizing exposure even if credentials were compromised. And when scaling up, new locations or users are added through software configuration — not hardware procurement.
Real-World Impact
Companies like Metropolis, which operates checkout-free parking systems, are rapidly scaling from thousands to hundreds of thousands of devices — without new VPN hardware. Similarly, Forest Rock, a leader in building controls and IoT systems, leverages ZeroTier to manage critical endpoints securely. Energy firms and online gaming operators are following suit for scalable, secure connectivity.
These organizations aren’t burdened by licensing costs or hardware lifecycles. New hires are onboarded in minutes, and insurance providers are rewarding them with better rates, as their reduced attack surface leads to fewer breaches.
The Race Against Time
As more companies shed the cybersecurity tax, the competitive divide is widening. Those making the switch can reinvest savings into pricing, innovation, or expansion. Meanwhile, firms clinging to VPNs face escalating premiums and operational inefficiencies.
If a giant like Cloudflare — with world-class engineers and infrastructure — can suffer outages from a single failure point, what does that mean for companies still running multiple VPNs?
Modern cyber threats are only becoming more sophisticated, especially with AI-driven attack tools. The cost of maintaining outdated security infrastructure keeps climbing.
Ultimately, the question is no longer if organizations will transition to mesh networks, but when. The ones that act now will enjoy the cost and speed advantages — before their competitors do, or before a costly breach forces the decision.