Zero Trust in 2025: Did It Deliver or Disappoint?

Introduction: From Slogan to Scorecard 

For most of the last decade, “Zero Trust” (ZT) was pitched as a guiding principle – aspirational, inspiring, yet often fuzzy. In 2025, that changed. Zero Trust stopped being a slogan and became a scoreboard. Boards and regulators no longer accepted glossy frameworks; they demanded proof that ZT delivered balance-sheet impact: reduced breach costs, faster recovery times, tighter identity control, and fewer crown-jewel systems at risk. 

The pressure came from all sides. Global breach costs averaged $4.45M (and $10.22 in the U.S.), with multi-environment incidents ballooning into the costliest class. At the same time, the SEC’s four-day disclosure clock and the EU’s AI Act and NIS2 directives forced directors to treat ZT not just as an IT project, but as a fiduciary obligation. In that context, “Zero Trust maturity” stopped being about checklists and started being about proof – metrics boards could put next to financial KPIs. 

So, did Zero Trust deliver or disappoint in 2025? The short answer: both. It delivered where organizations treated it as architecture – identity-first access, microsegmentation, policy-as-code, and automated isolation with outcomes they could measure. It was disappointing when it was reduced to a VPN replacement or another line item in the tool stack. This blog takes stock of both sides and lays out what it takes to make ZT a true performance engine in 2026. 

What “Zero Trust” Actually Means (and Why It’s Still Hard) 

NIST’s reference defines Zero Trust as a set of paradigms that move defenses from static perimeters to continuous, identity- and context-driven authorization for users, devices, applications, and data. The U.S. public sector sharpened expectations with the CISA Zero Trust Maturity Model (ZTMM) and sector strategies (e.g., DoD’s ZT roadmap), framing measurable progress across identity, device, network/segmentation, application, and data pillars.  

In 2025, federal momentum continued: the DoD issued a new directive-type memorandum to align resources with its ZT strategy through 2026 – a signal that large, complex enterprises can effectively anchor ZT in governance, funding, and milestones.  

Yet even with frameworks, ZT is tough. It demands identity cleanup, data labeling, policy-as-code, segmented networks, and operational muscle to prove controls in live drills. That’s why the year’s story is split between wins (identity-first access, reduced lateral movement, faster containment) and friction (workarounds, tool sprawl, and inconsistent enforcement). 

2025 Reality Check: Adoption vs. Maturity 

• Adoption is mainstream. By 2023, Okta saw 61% of organizations with a defined ZT initiative and 35% planning one – momentum that carried into 2025 as boards linked cyber spend to outcome metrics.  
• Maturity lags. A 2025 North American survey (conducted among 1,000 IT/security/engineering professionals) found that 83% bypassed security controls to get work done; only 29% relied primarily on identity-based access; and 90% reported VPN limitations – clear signs that ZT goals often conflict with daily workflows and legacy access design.  
• Risk remains material. IBM’s 2025 data puts the global average breach cost at approximately $4.45M (U.S.: $10.22), with multi-environment breaches being the costliest class – precisely the pattern ZT aims to mitigate by unifying identity, telemetry, and segmentation. AI-related “shadow AI” and model/plugin supply-chain breaches added fresh exposure and cost.  

Verdict so far: ZT delivered where identity and segmentation were engineered end-to-end and measured; it disappointed where ZTNA-as-a-VPN or policy theater substituted for architecture. 

Where Zero Trust Delivered in 2025 

1) Identity-First Access Reduced Attack Paths 

Organizations that replaced shared credentials and standing VPN tunnels with phishing-resistant MFA, device posture checks, and per-request authorization saw fewer credential-stuffing escalations and cleaner incident containment. Google’s BeyondCorp model continued to provide a reference for least-privilege, context-aware access without traditional VPN dependency.  

What made it work: consolidated identity stores, lifecycle automation for human and non-human identities (service principals, tokens), and policy engines that evaluate user × device × resource × risk on every request. 

2) Segmentation Contained Lateral Movement 

Microsegmentation (host- or workload-level) limited blast radius when an attacker got a foothold, converting potential enterprise-wide incidents into bounded, investigable scopes. This aligns with the CISA ZTMM network and data pillars and has become a core board-level story: fewer crown-jewel systems in scope, resulting in fewer days of disruption.  

3) Policy-as-Code Made Compliance Actionable 

Teams that encoded authorization and data-handling rules (e.g., OPA/Rego policies, ABAC) into pipelines produced evidence-ready controls for audits and disclosures – especially important under the SEC’s four-business-day incident disclosure rule and the expanding expectations for AI governance. These pipelines cut advisory costs, accelerated reporting, and provided boards with assurance that compliance wasn’t just paperwork, but live, testable safeguards. And with NIS2, liability for supplier oversight now sits squarely with directors, making Zero Trust segmentation and third-party identity governance not just an IT control, but a fiduciary obligation. 

4) Incident Economics Improved with Automation 

Zero Trust approaches that coupled continuous verification with SOAR workflows (auto-revoking sessions, rotating secrets, quarantining assets) shaved minutes to hours off MTTR. At scale, those minutes translate into millions in avoided downtime relative to IBM’s cost baselines.  

Where Zero Trust Disappointed (and why) 

1) “Swap the VPN” ≠ Zero Trust 

Many programs equated ZT with a perimeter-replacement tool. The result: network tunnels by another name, still granting broad reach once connected. Engineers then bypassed controls to stay productive, undercutting ZT’s least-privilege promise. (Remember the survey: 83% admitted workarounds; 90% cited VPN limits.) IT Pro 

Fix: Make identity the new perimeter. Use short-lived tokens, step up authentication for sensitive actions, and explicitly disallow broad network inheritance from remote access. 

2) Tool Sprawl Without Architecture 

Organizations bought ZTNA, EDR, CSPM, and IAM add-ons – but never unified identity, logging, or data classification. When breaches cross SaaS, cloud, and on-premises environments, visibility gaps slow responders – exactly the scenario that drives multi-environment breach costs.  

Fix: Fund the plumbing: normalize telemetry, reconcile identities, and label data before adding the next tool. 

3) Policy Without People 

ZT controls sometimes degrade the developer or operator experience. Predictably, users found routes around them (local secrets, ad-hoc tunnels). Sustainable ZT requires product-quality UX, including fast authentication, low-latency access, self-service enrollment, and streamlined workflows. The 2025 survey shows organizations trying to consolidate for efficiency – good news if it removes friction rather than adding it. IT Pro 

4) AI and Shadow IT Outpaced Guardrails 

In 2025, AI-related breaches (shadow AI, plugin/API chains) raised the bar for ZT: per-request authorization must cover data regression to models and agents, not just human users. Few teams had mature AI access controls, and breach costs rose accordingly. IT Pro 

Fix: Treat AI systems as first-class principals in ZT: inventory models, govern prompts and outputs, and enforce least privilege on model-to-data access. 

Measuring Zero Trust in Board Language 

Boards in 2025 demanded outcome metrics, not slogans. A ZT program that “delivered” could show movement on a one-page scorecard: 

• Privilege Risk Index: Admin-equivalent identities ↓ quarter-over-quarter; toxic permission combinations on crown-jewel systems trending down. 
• Time to Isolate Compromised Identity: Median minutes to revoke sessions, rotate tokens, and re-attest device posture. 
• Segmentation Efficacy: Number of services with east-west policies enforced; percent of crown-jewel workloads isolated; incident blast radius (hosts/services) trending down. 
• Multi-Environment Visibility: % of SaaS, cloud, endpoint logs in a common schema – critical because multi-environment breaches cost more and last longer.  
• Resilience Proof: RTO/RPO attainment for services under ZT controls; quarterly live restore drills with evidence. 
• AI Governance Coverage: Percent of data sets with AI access policies; approved model/plugin inventories; red-team results. 
• Loss Avoided Index (NEW): Probability-weighted dollars saved by privilege reduction, faster isolation, and segmentation efficacy  –  benchmarked against IBM’s $4.44M global breach cost. 

These metrics tie directly to loss avoidance and resilience proof, translating Zero Trust into the finance-first language boards expect. 

Sector Signals: Public Sector as a Forcing Function 

Federal guidance moved from principle to practice. The CISA ZTMM v2 provides agencies (and any large enterprise) with a staged path from traditional to advanced to optimal maturity. The DoD followed with renewed guidance in July 2025 to keep ZT on a resourced track toward 2027 targets. Even if you’re in the private sector, these artifacts are useful: they translate ZT into operational milestones that boards can audit. 

2026 Outlook: Turning Zero Trust Into Demonstrable ROI 

1. Identity-defined networks become the default. Expect a rapid shift away from legacy VPN toward per-app, identity-aware access – a trend reinforced by user frustration with tunnels and by the need to handle hybrid work gracefully. The productivity angle is now as strong as the security one. 
2. AI joins the trust calculus. ZT will extend to model-to-data permissions, signed prompts, agent identity, and provenance of outputs. Organizations will publish AI access baselines alongside human IAM, closing the “shadow AI” gap that inflated breach costs in 2025 
3. Proof over policy. Boards will expect evidence pipelines (e.g., automated least-privilege attestations, segmentation coverage reports, live restore logs) that feed disclosures and audits without stealing cycles from operations – mirroring how leading teams operationalized SEC-timed incident workflows. 
4.  Architecture before spending. The highest ROI in 2026 will come from integration – unifying identity, telemetry, and policy – rather than another point product. Breach-cost deltas will track the quality of this integration more closely than the number of tools. 
5. Talent resilience enters the board pack (NEW). Boards will also expect talent resilience metrics – analyst hours saved via automation, time-to-hire for cyber-critical roles, and workload distribution. Workforce gaps remain one of the biggest multipliers of breach costs, making human capacity a board-level KPI. 

A Pragmatic Zero Trust Playbook (What Worked in 2025) 

1. Re-base identity. Collapse directories, revoke standing privileges, and issue short-lived credentials to individuals and services. Require phishing-resistant MFA and device posture for sensitive actions – every time. (Map to ZTMM identity and device pillars.)  
2. Instrument segmentation. Start with crown-jewel systems; define policies in plain language (“this service only talks to that database on these ports”), then enforce and measure blast-radius reduction.  
3. Make policy code. Centralize authorization (OPA/ABAC), define reusable guardrails, and ship them with applications. Treat policy tests like unit tests. 
4. Automate isolation. Build a kill-switch for compromised identities and services: revoke tokens, purge sessions, rotate secrets, and quarantine assets via SOAR in minutes. Tie to MTTR metrics. 
5. Extend ZT to AI. Inventory models govern data flows and authenticate agents. Apply DLP, tokenization, or confidential computing to sensitive data used by models to protect it.  
6. Publish the scorecard. Report quarterly on privilege reduction, visibility coverage, segmentation efficacy, and RTO attainment. Translate each into loss avoided using external cost benchmarks.  

Did Zero Trust Deliver or Disappoint? The Balanced Verdict 

• Delivered when… organizations engineered around identity, segmentation, and automation; backed changes with governance and evidence; and improved user experience so people didn’t need workarounds. 
• Disappointed when… leaders treated ZT as a tool purchase, left identity sprawl untouched, kept flat internal networks, and allowed friction to drive bypass behavior. 

Zero Trust remains the most credible blueprint we have for a world of hybrid work, AI-infused apps, and porous supply chains. But it pays off only when it’s implemented as architecture, measured as outcomes, and sustained as an operating model. NIST, CISA, and sector roadmaps give the scaffolding; your integration work supplies the value.  

Turning Principles Into Proof 

Enterprises need security partners who can align technical controls with board-level outcomes – identity clarity, segmentation efficacy, and time-to-isolate that can be proven. By combining AI-aware, identity-based access, micro segmentation, and compliance-ready reporting, partners like Compunnel help leaders turn Zero Trust from theory into evidence-backed resilience – with metrics the board understands. 

Conclusion: The 2026 Mandate – Zero Trust You Can Prove 

In 2025, Zero Trust did not fail; many implementations did. The gap wasn’t a lack of vision – it was a matter of execution and evidence. Organizations that treated ZT as an operating system for security saw fewer privileges, smaller blast radii, faster recovery, and clearer audit trails. Those that didn’t see workarounds, visibility gaps, and multi-environment breaches that still cost millions. 

As you plan 2026, measure your ZT program the way your board will: 

• How many admin-equivalent identities did we eliminate? 
• How fast can we isolate a compromised identity or service? 
• What percent of crown-jewel workloads are segmented and verified? 
• What proof do we have – today – that we can restore critical services within RTO? 
• How have we extended ZT to AI models, agents, and plugins? 

If you can answer those questions with numbers and evidence, Zero Trust will continue to deliver. If not, it’s time to rebuild around identity, segmentation, automation – and a scorecard that proves it. 

As boards demand results, explore how Compunnel Cybersecurity Services helps translate Zero Trust investments into measurable reductions in risk and time-to-recover – so you can show not just what you deployed, but what it changed.