“Zero Trust Is Dead”: Tailscale’s survey on secure networks

Tailscale's report on the State of Zero Trust in 2025, based on a survey of 1,000 IT, security, and engineering leaders, reveals the complexities and human factors hindering the implementation of Zero Trust environments. While Zero Trust aims to secure networks by focusing on identity-centric access rather than network location, the survey identifies challenges such as disruption risks, unclear business cases, and leadership priorities as barriers to adoption. Notably, 83% of respondents admitted to bypassing security measures, and many retained access to privileged systems post-employment, highlighting the inadequacies of legacy VPNs, which are often hampered by manual provisioning. The report emphasizes that although humans can complicate security efforts, they are crucial to effective Zero Trust solutions, advocating for access controls based on user identity to close security gaps and ensure compliance.