A firewall was built to protect a building. It was never built to protect a workforce that logs in from a kitchen table, an airport, and a client site all in the same week. TCW-GAV secures hybrid teams around identity instead of location, so access follows the person, not the network they happen to be sitting on.

Perimeter security assumes there is a perimeter worth defending. For most businesses today, that assumption stopped being true years ago. Employees connect from personal devices, home networks, and public Wi-Fi, and a traditional firewall has no meaningful way to evaluate any of it beyond checking whether a login came through the right VPN tunnel. NIST’s Zero Trust Architecture framework formalized the alternative: narrow defenses from wide network perimeters down to individual resources, and verify every request rather than trusting anything by default because of where it originated.

That shift moves identity to the center of the security model. Microsoft Entra’s identity and access management platform is built around exactly that principle, verifying who is requesting access, from what device, and under what conditions, before granting it, rather than assuming anyone inside the network tunnel is automatically trustworthy. A stolen password used to be enough to get into a legacy VPN. Under an identity-first model, that same password triggers additional verification the moment something looks unusual, a login from an unfamiliar location or device the system has not seen before.

How This Plays Out in Practice

TCW-GAV moves clients off legacy SSL VPNs and onto identity-first access models built around multi-factor authentication and conditional access policies. Instead of one login granting broad network access, each request gets evaluated on its own, based on the device, the location, and the behavior behind it. For a hybrid workforce, that difference matters more than it sounds. A legacy VPN treats an employee working from a coffee shop the same as one sitting in the office, full access, no questions asked, as long as the password is correct. An identity-first model recognizes that those are not the same risk level, and adjusts accordingly without slowing down the employee who is exactly who they say they are.

What Makes TCW-GAV’s Approach Different

• Identity, not location, decides access. Multi-factor authentication and conditional access policies replace blanket VPN trust, so a stolen password alone is not enough to get in.
• Built for how hybrid teams really work. Security adjusts based on device and behavior instead of assuming everyone inside the tunnel is safe and everyone outside is not.
• One team manages the whole environment. The same engineers who handle your network also manage identity and access, so nothing falls through the cracks between separate vendors.
• Built on TCW TotalCare. 24/7 monitoring and cybersecurity protection under one contract, including the identity layer, not treated as a separate add-on.

Ready to Move Past Perimeter Security

A workforce that logs in from anywhere needs security that travels with them, not a firewall guarding an office nobody is sitting in full time anymore. Identity-first access closes that gap without slowing your team down.

Book a Discovery Discussion and find out where your current access model is leaving you exposed.

Frequently Asked Questions

• Do we have to get rid of our VPN entirely?

In most cases, yes, since identity-based access replaces the need for broad network-level VPN access for day-to-day work.

• Does this slow employees down with extra login steps?

Not for normal use. Extra verification only triggers when something looks unusual, like an unfamiliar device or location.

• Is this only relevant for fully remote teams?

No. Hybrid teams working partly in the office and partly elsewhere see the same exposure a VPN was never built to handle.

• How does this connect to Microsoft 365?

Identity-first security integrates directly with Microsoft 365 through Microsoft Entra, so it works with tools your team already uses.

• How do we get started?

A Discovery Discussion to review your current access setup and identify where identity controls should replace legacy VPN access.

Ready to strengthen your hybrid workforce security? Talk to TCW-GAV about moving from perimeter-based protection to identity-first security.