How does Cipherscale provide Seamless Secure Access (SSA) or universal Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)? – Cipherscale Support Center

Cipherscale provides Seamless Secure Access (SSA) and universal ZTNA by unifying the security stack. Instead of forcing you to manage separate policies for "inside the office" and "outside the office," cipherscale uses an AI-native architecture to enforce a single, consistent security posture regardless of the user's physical location.

The Problem: Security Silos and Hair-pinning

Most enterprises struggle with two major inefficiencies:

Security Silos: Using legacy firewalls, Network Access Control (NAC), and other network security tools for on-prem users and a separate ZTNA/VPN for remote users. This creates inconsistent policies and operational overhead.
Traffic Hair-pinning: Many ZTNA solutions force on-prem traffic to travel to a cloud data center and back again just to reach a local server, severely degrading performance.

The Cipherscale Solution: Unified Enforcement

Cipherscale resolves these issues by placing the enforcement point (the Gateway) directly where the resources live, while keeping the intelligence in the cloud. It allows enterprises to replace their disparate on-prem and remote access network security solutions with cipherscale. This leads to operational simplicity and cost efficiency.

1. Unified Policy Engine

Cipherscale allows administrators to define a single access policy that follows the user. Whether a staff member is sitting at their desk in the office or working from a coffee shop, cipherscale evaluates the same identity, device posture, and admission rules.

2. Local Path Optimization (No Hair-pinning)

Unlike cloud-only ZTNA providers, where the traffic has to go to one of their Cloud PoP and is then hairpinned back to a local server, Cipherscale ensures that traffic stays local whenever possible:

On-Premises: The device decides the optimal Gateway to connect to based on round-trip time. The WireGuard® connection request to the public IP address of the on-prem Gateway remains on the on-prem network as the internet gateway determines that the destination of the public IP address is local. Traffic never leaves the local network to reach local servers.
Remote: When the device is off-site, it establishes the secure tunnel over the internet to the same Gateway.

3. Identity-Based Micro-segmentation

To achieve true universal ZTNA, cipherscale treats the office network as "untrusted."

Application servers are locked down to only accept traffic from cipherscale Gateways.
Office computers cannot "see" the servers directly; they must first be verified by the AI-native Controller and then routed through the Gateway.
This prevents lateral movement by attackers who might have gained physical access to an office Ethernet port.

Comparison of Access Models

Feature	Legacy Hybrid Model	Cipherscale SSA
Management	Two separate systems	One AI-native system
Performance	Fast on-prem, slow remote	Local speed for local traffic
Policy	Inconsistent/Fragmented	Unified & AI-optimized
Security	Perimeter-based (Weak)	Identity + Posture-based

Cipherscale eliminates the "on-prem vs. remote" distinction, making security invisible to users while providing the Administrator with a simplified, AI-native interface for managing the entire global footprint.

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^[2] WireGuard is a registered trademark of Jason A. Donenfeld.