Cybersecurity
Nonprofit (501c3)
Remote access
VPN replacement
| ### Background Cybersecurity Defense & Intelligence Center ([CDIC](https://www.cyberintelnetwork.org/)) is a non-profit that provides training in cyber forensics, security, response, and intelligence through its CDIC Academy. CDIC has a team of over 125 members globally and require secure remote access to their internal networks and applications. The members are comprised of cybersecurity and intelligence professionals from entry-level to veteran leaders. ### Challenges & requirements As a cybersecurity nonprofit with a distributed team, CDIC requires the most secure remote access to their company networks and applications that is cost-efficient, specifically to Jira, their SIEM, and their servers. To accomplish this, CDIC started with ZeroTier as a VPN. However, VPNs have many known vulnerabilities and are not designed to support a large and growing distributed workforce. CDIC's challenges included: * The understanding that VPNs have widely known vulnerabilities, and desired a Zero Trust alternative * VPNs do not allow for segmented access * Performance speeds were slow, especially for teams in particular geographies * VPNs are censored for teams in certain geographies * Adding and removing teammates securely was complicated and needed someone with network engineering expertise to configure * Upgrading to enterprise-grade Zero Trust solutions is expensive and full of extra, unneeded features ### Solution CDIC partnered with NVIS AI to provide best-in-class alternative to VPNs they need, including: * **Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA)**: Enabled by NVIS AI's Software Defined Perimeter (SDP), nodes are peer-to-peer and encrypted at Layer 2, eliminating the public attack surface * **Fast performance**: Nodes are connected peer-to-peer in any geography * **Connect anywhere**: As an SDP, NVIS AI is unaffected by VPN blockers * **Easy management**: With AI Provisioning, even entry-level teammates are able to administer the network in minutes without needing much skill or risking misconfiguration * **Economical pricing**: NVIS AI provides no-frills best-in-class secure remote access that can be setup without any changes to the network or workflows