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There is no universally safest replacement for a VPN in a SCADA or utility environment. The strongest design matches access scope to operational need: use a hardened industrial VPN gateway for legacy services that require network connectivity, a jump or bastion host when sessions can be brokered through a controlled workstation, narrowly restricted SSH for supported maintenance tasks, and zero-trust network access (ZTNA), Secure Service Edge (SSE), or Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) when you need per-resource policy and strong identity context. Whichever pattern you choose, terminate remote access in a segmented OT access zone, enforce multifactor authentication and least privilege, monitor every session, and design for safe operation if cloud, WAN, or identity services fail.
Why remote access is a special risk in SCADA and utility networks
Remote connectivity can shorten outage response times and let equipment vendors diagnose faults without traveling to a site. It also creates a path from an external account or device toward systems that control generation, transmission, water treatment, manufacturing, or other physical processes. A stolen credential, unpatched gateway, misrouted firewall rule, or unattended vendor session can therefore affect safety, reliability, regulatory obligations, and public service.
NIST’s Guide to Operational Technology (OT) Security, SP 800-82 Rev. 3 (September 2023), states: “Security controls should be implemented to prevent unauthorized remote access to an organization’s networks, systems, and data.” CISA’s Guide to Securing Remote Access Software (June 6, 2023) warns that flexible remote-access tools are increasingly co-opted by cyber threat actors and calls for an inventory of authorized tools, hardened configurations, monitoring, and restricted exposure.
Traditional VPNs are not inherently unsafe, but a network-level tunnel can expose many hosts and services after one account is approved. CISA and partner agencies reported more than 22 known exploited vulnerabilities associated with VPN compromise in 2024. That makes architecture and operating controls more important than the product label.
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Four practical access patterns
| Pattern | Best fit | Access granularity | Protocol considerations | Key dependency | Main limitation |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hardened industrial VPN gateway | Legacy OT services that cannot be proxied easily | Usually network, route, and port based | Broadest compatibility with required TCP/UDP and some serial gateways | Firewall, strong authentication, patching, and route policy | A compromised account may reach more of the network than intended |
| Jump or bastion host | Centralized vendor, engineer, and administrator sessions | Host, account, application, and session based | Works when engineering tools can run on or through the broker | Hardened managed workstation or server in a management zone | Can become a high-value single point of failure |
| Restricted SSH | Approved maintenance on systems that natively support SSH | Account, key, command, and host based | Excellent for SSH-capable systems; unsuitable for many proprietary GUIs and serial workflows | Key or certificate management, MFA where available, and command controls | SSH alone does not provide segmentation or complete authorization |
| ZTNA, SSE, or SASE | Per-resource policy across hybrid, remote, and cloud environments | User, device, application, and session context | Must be validated for OT TCP/UDP, engineering software, and latency-sensitive traffic | Identity, policy, connectors, and often enterprise or cloud services | Cloud or identity outages and unsupported protocols can interrupt maintenance |
How each pattern works
Hardened industrial VPN gateway
A VPN gateway remains useful when a legacy PLC, historian, relay, or engineering application expects ordinary network connectivity. Place the gateway in a firewall-controlled OT access zone rather than directly inside the control network. Permit only the routes and ports required for a specific maintenance task, and separate vendor access from operator and safety-system traffic.
CISA communications-infrastructure hardening guidance recommends dedicated administrative workstations, network segmentation, encrypted transport, and hardened VPN gateways with minimal exposed ports and strong cryptography. Apply those principles by disabling unused services and algorithms, restricting management interfaces to an administrative network, requiring multifactor authentication, and assigning separate privileged accounts.
Use time-limited access whenever the gateway supports it. A vendor should receive an approved window and destination set, not a standing tunnel. Record who connected, from which device, through which gateway, to which destination, and when the session ended. A VPN is the appropriate choice when protocol compatibility is decisive, but it should be treated as a controlled conduit rather than a trust boundary.
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Jump or bastion host
A jump host brokers access through a managed workstation or server. The remote user first authenticates to the bastion, then launches only the approved tools or connections from that host into OT. This lets the organization keep vendor software, scripts, and credentials off unmanaged laptops and provides one place for session recording, clipboard and file-transfer policy, patching, and account review.
Place the bastion in a segmented management zone with one-way or tightly limited flows toward the required OT assets. Do not give the bastion unrestricted reach merely because it is inside the perimeter. Create separate profiles for vendors, control engineers, and emergency responders; each profile should expose only the hosts and applications needed for its role.
A bastion is particularly effective when engineers use graphical configuration software, serial-to-IP tools, or vendor utilities that cannot be cleanly published through an application proxy. Its trade-off is concentration of risk: compromise of the host, its administrator account, or its software repository could affect every session. Harden it as a critical OT component, maintain a spare or alternate path, and test recovery.
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Narrowly scoped SSH
NIST SP 800-82 Rev. 3 identifies SSH as a secure alternative to Telnet. SSH is appropriate for systems and workflows that support it natively, such as controlled administration of Linux-based gateways, historians, or network appliances. Use individual accounts, managed keys or certificates, short-lived credentials where possible, and multifactor authentication when the implementation supports it.
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Restrict each account to the commands and destinations required for the approved task. Disable interactive features that are not needed, control port forwarding and file transfer, and apply explicit change approval before production modifications. Log authentication, command execution, privilege changes, and session duration.
SSH does not solve the rest of the architecture. An SSH account can still be over-privileged, a host can still be reachable from the wrong zone, and a stolen key can still be used outside the intended maintenance window. Pair SSH restrictions with network segmentation, device assurance, monitoring, and rapid key revocation.
ZTNA, SSE, and SASE
NIST SP 800-207 defines zero trust as granting no implicit trust based solely on physical or network location; authentication and authorization occur before a session to an enterprise resource is established. ZTNA policies can therefore publish a named application, host, or service rather than an entire subnet. SSE and SASE combine comparable identity-aware access controls with additional security and networking functions, often across distributed sites.
CISA’s Modern Approaches to Network Access Security (June 18, 2024) recommends moving toward more robust and fine-grained approaches such as Zero Trust, SSE, and SASE because traditional remote access and VPN misconfiguration can create broad business risk. In an OT deployment, validate that the chosen architecture carries every required protocol, including TCP/UDP combinations, engineering applications, serial gateways, and any latency-sensitive traffic. A policy that works for a web dashboard may not work for a protection relay or proprietary programming tool.
Assess local survivability before placing a production dependency on a cloud policy engine or external identity provider. Determine whether already-established sessions continue safely, how new emergency access works during an outage, and how policy changes are propagated when the WAN is unavailable. A ZTNA design is strongest when its resource-level boundaries are matched by physical and firewall segmentation rather than used as the only barrier.
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Choose by consequence, protocol, and operating conditions
1. Define the consequence of compromise
List the systems a remote user could influence and classify the result of unauthorized access: loss of view, loss of control, unsafe process change, equipment damage, environmental release, or service interruption. The higher the consequence, the more valuable it is to require a brokered session, independent approval, strong device assurance, and a second person for critical actions.
2. Inventory the actual workflows
For every vendor and internal role, record the software, destination hosts, ports, transport protocols, serial requirements, file-transfer needs, and expected session duration. Do not select ZTNA, SSH, or a VPN based on a generic feature list. Test the exact engineering workstation and firmware tools in a representative environment.
3. Set the required granularity
If a user needs one application on one host, prefer a bastion or resource-specific ZTNA policy. If a legacy workflow needs several services across a controlled subnet, a hardened VPN gateway may be simpler. If the task is a small set of shell commands, restricted SSH can minimize exposure.
4. Evaluate identity and device assurance
Require multifactor authentication for every remote role, use separate privileged accounts, and prefer phishing-resistant authenticators or certificates where the environment supports them. Check device posture when feasible: supported operating-system version, encryption, endpoint protection, current patches, and absence of unauthorized remote-control software. A valid password from an unmanaged device is not sufficient assurance for a control network.
5. Test resilience and safe failure
Document what happens when the identity provider, cloud service, WAN link, local gateway, or bastion fails. Critical operations should fail closed for new sessions without interrupting a process that is already in a safe state. Provide an approved local or out-of-band procedure for urgent maintenance, with equivalent logging and post-event review.
Reference architecture for a utility or industrial site
Use separate zones with explicit conduits rather than a single flat remote-access segment. A common arrangement is:
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- External access: Internet or partner connectivity terminates on a hardened gateway or approved access service. Expose only the minimum required interfaces.
- Remote-access zone: Place VPN termination, ZTNA connectors, or bastion services here. Keep administrative interfaces on a separate management path.
- Operations management zone: Host jump workstations, patch repositories, and monitoring collectors that need controlled access to OT.
- Control network: PLCs, RTUs, SCADA servers, engineering stations, and historians communicate only through documented firewall rules.
- Safety and protection systems: Isolate these from routine vendor paths; require a separately approved workflow for any permitted connection.
- Business and enterprise networks: Do not assume that an internal location is trusted. Treat flows from corporate systems as remote access and authorize them explicitly.
For each conduit, specify source identity, destination asset, protocol, direction, time window, and approval owner. Use deny-by-default rules and verify that return traffic, name resolution, time synchronization, and license services do not silently broaden the path.
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- Build an authorized-access register. Record every remote-access product, gateway, account, vendor, owner, destination, protocol, and business justification. CISA recommends maintaining an inventory because unknown or abandoned tools are common attack paths.
- Remove unnecessary exposure. Disable unused remote-control tools, default accounts, legacy algorithms, unused listener ports, and permanent vendor tunnels. Restrict administration of the remaining components to dedicated administrative workstations.
- Create the access zone. Place gateways, connectors, and bastions behind firewalls that separate them from both business networks and the control network. Write explicit rules for each approved flow.
- Establish identity policy. Issue individual accounts, enforce multifactor authentication, separate ordinary and privileged identities, and define who can approve, activate, extend, and revoke access.
- Bind access to devices. Require managed devices where possible and evaluate patch level, encryption, endpoint controls, certificates, and local administrator status. Block or quarantine devices that fail the policy.
- Limit the session. Use named destinations, approved applications or commands, maintenance windows, idle timeouts, and a second approver for high-impact changes. Avoid shared accounts; if a legacy system forces one, authenticate the person upstream and record the individual session.
- Control data movement. Decide whether clipboard, drive mapping, printing, file upload, and download are needed. Scan and stage files in a controlled location before they enter OT, and log transfers.
- Enable complete monitoring. Collect authentication events, policy decisions, gateway and bastion logs, command histories, configuration changes, and session recordings where legally and operationally appropriate. Synchronize time sources so events can be reconstructed.
- Exercise the emergency path. Simulate loss of cloud access, identity services, WAN connectivity, and the primary gateway. Confirm that local operators can keep the process safe and that emergency credentials are sealed, audited, and rotated after use.
- Review after every change. Close temporary access, remove stale accounts, compare actual connections with the register, and obtain OT-owner sign-off before expanding routes or permissions.
Protocol and engineering-tool compatibility
SCADA environments combine modern IP services with older and proprietary technologies. A design that supports browser-based dashboards may fail when an engineer needs a vendor application that opens multiple dynamic connections, communicates over UDP, accesses a serial gateway, or depends on local licensing and discovery.
- TCP and UDP: Test both directions and all secondary connections; permitting only the initial TCP connection can produce an apparently intermittent failure.
- Serial and fieldbus gateways: Verify how the gateway maps serial sessions, whether exclusive control is required, and how disconnects leave the device.
- Engineering software: Test installation, licensing, firmware transfer, project upload and download, and recovery after a dropped session.
- Latency and bandwidth: Measure behavior over the real WAN path. Interactive engineering tools may time out even when a simple ping succeeds.
- Legacy authentication: Where the endpoint cannot perform modern authentication, enforce strong identity at the gateway or bastion and reduce the endpoint’s reachable scope.
Monitoring and response requirements
Access approval is not the end of control. Alert on logins outside approved windows, new source devices, repeated authentication failures, impossible travel, unusual destinations, privilege escalation, large file transfers, disabled recording, and commands that change configuration or firmware. Correlate remote-access events with firewall, endpoint, SCADA, and physical-maintenance records.
Define an immediate containment procedure: suspend the account, revoke keys or certificates, terminate active sessions, block the source device, preserve logs, and notify the OT incident team. Operators should know how to place affected equipment in a safe state without relying on the same remote channel under investigation.
Lifecycle, patching, and governance
Internet-facing gateways, bastions, connectors, and identity components require an accelerated patch process. Track vendor advisories, remove unsupported versions, test updates against engineering workflows, and keep a rollback image. CISA specifically recommends minimizing exposure and maintaining hardened configurations; NIST’s OT guidance emphasizes preventing unauthorized remote access rather than merely detecting it.
Assign ownership for every connection. The asset owner approves destinations, security staff maintain policy and monitoring, vendors justify their access, and operations staff verify that the workflow is safe. Review access at a defined interval and whenever a contract, role, asset, or network path changes. Expire dormant accounts and temporary exceptions automatically.
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Common failure modes and fixes
“The VPN is encrypted, so the network is safe.”
Encryption protects the tunnel but does not constrain what an authenticated user can reach. Move termination into an access zone, reduce routes and ports, require MFA, and monitor the actual destinations.
“The bastion is inside the firewall, so it can reach everything.”
A bastion with unrestricted reach becomes a master key. Apply per-role firewall rules, separate vendor and administrator profiles, restrict applications, and maintain an alternate host for availability.
“SSH is secure by definition.”
SSH protects transport, not authorization. Use individual identities, managed keys, command restrictions, port-forwarding controls, MFA where available, and explicit change approval.
“Zero trust removes the need for OT segmentation.”
Identity-aware policy can fail through misconfiguration, connector compromise, or an unavailable policy service. Keep physical and firewall segmentation, validate local survivability, and test every OT protocol.
“A permanent vendor account is faster during an outage.”
Standing access increases exposure and makes accountability difficult. Use pre-approved emergency procedures with time-limited activation, named users, strong authentication, session recording, and mandatory post-event review.
“A cloud policy service will always be available.”
Utilities must plan for WAN, cloud, and identity-provider outages. Define which sessions can continue, how new access is denied or granted locally, and how operators perform safe maintenance without bypassing controls.
Decision guide by operating scenario
| Scenario | Preferred starting pattern | Additional controls |
|---|---|---|
| Legacy PLC or relay requires several network services | Hardened VPN gateway in an OT access zone | Minimal routes and ports, MFA, maintenance windows, session logging, redundant gateways |
| Multiple vendors use graphical engineering tools | Jump or bastion host | Managed workstation images, per-vendor profiles, recording, file-transfer controls, spare host |
| Linux gateway or appliance needs a small command set | Restricted SSH | Short-lived keys or certificates, command allowlists, MFA, privilege separation, command logs |
| Distributed sites need application-level policy | ZTNA, SSE, or SASE | OT protocol testing, local survivability, connector segmentation, device posture, emergency procedure |
| Safety or protection system needs exceptional access | Dedicated, separately approved path; avoid routine shared access | Two-person authorization, isolation from ordinary vendor routes, extensive recording, physical-site coordination |
Minimum control checklist
- Every remote-access tool and connection appears in an owner-approved inventory.
- Termination points sit in a segmented access or management zone.
- Routes, ports, hosts, applications, and commands are limited to the task.
- Multifactor authentication and separate privileged accounts are mandatory.
- Device posture or certificate checks are used whenever technically feasible.
- Temporary and emergency access expires automatically and is reviewed afterward.
- Sessions, commands, configuration changes, and file transfers are logged.
- Internet-facing components are patched promptly and unused features are disabled.
- OT protocol compatibility is tested with the real engineering workflow.
- Cloud, WAN, identity, and gateway outages have a tested safe-failure procedure.
- Operators can isolate a suspicious session without losing control of the process.
Bottom line
Select the narrowest access pattern that reliably supports the required OT workflow. Use a hardened VPN gateway when legacy protocols demand network connectivity, a bastion when centralized and recorded sessions provide better control, restricted SSH for tightly defined command-line maintenance, and ZTNA, SSE, or SASE when identity- and resource-level policy is the priority. None is a substitute for segmentation, strong authentication, monitoring, patching, and resilient operations. CISA’s ICS practices emphasize that no single remote-access solution fits every architecture; defense in depth is the deciding principle.
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