--- title: A VPN connection is not an authorization decision description: Discussion about "A VPN connection is not an authorization decision" on daily.dev - join the developer community canonical: https://daily.dev/posts/a-vpn-connection-is-not-an-authorization-decision-d6a6vr0is twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:site: @dailydotdev og:type: website og:site_name: daily.dev og:title: A VPN connection is not an authorization decision | daily.dev og:description: Discussion about "A VPN connection is not an authorization decision" on daily.dev - join the developer community og:url: https://daily.dev/posts/a-vpn-connection-is-not-an-authorization-decision-d6a6vr0is og:image: https://api.daily.dev/og/posts/d6A6vr0IS.png og:image:alt: A VPN connection is not an authorization decision og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 630 og:locale: en --- > ## Documentation Index > Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://daily.dev/llms.txt > Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further. # A VPN connection is not an authorization decision **[Auth By Example](https://daily.dev/sources/7eadcwhmohx0bchehapmt)** · [@authbyexample](https://daily.dev/authbyexample) · 0 upvotes · 0 comments ## Content A VPN (or Zero Trust network access) proves a device or user reached the private network. It does not decide which tenants, objects, or actions that principal may touch once they are inside. Treating "on-VPN" as "authorized" recreates the flat castle-and-moat bug inside your app. Keep network access and application authorization separate: 1. Authenticate who connected, then still run can(principal, action, resource) for the concrete tenant and object on every sensitive request — list, read, update, delete, and export alike. 2. Do not encode object permissions in VPN group membership alone. Groups change slowly; object ownership and sharing change often. A revoked share must fail even while the laptop stays on the tunnel. 3. Admin or break-glass VPN profiles still need scoped app roles and audit. Network privilege is not an excuse to skip per-object checks. 4. Service-to-service calls that originate "inside" the VPN are not automatically trusted. Bind the caller identity and authorize the specific API action and resource ids. 5. Prefer deny-by-default when tenant context is missing. An empty filter that becomes "all rows because they are on VPN" is a classic horizontal privilege bug. Quick check: from an on-VPN session for tenant A, request tenant B's object id (or a sibling record). If the API returns it because the client was "internal," the VPN was camouflage — not authorization. VPNs shrink the attack surface. Authorization still has to decide who may see or change each object. --- [View this post on daily.dev](https://daily.dev/posts/a-vpn-connection-is-not-an-authorization-decision-d6a6vr0is) ```json {"@context":"https://schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization","name":"daily.dev","url":"https://daily.dev","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://daily.dev/apple-touch-icon.png","width":180,"height":180},"sameAs":["https://twitter.com/dailydotdev","https://github.com/dailydotdev","https://www.linkedin.com/company/daily-dev-ltd"]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https://daily.dev/#website","url":"https://daily.dev","name":"daily.dev","publisher":{"@id":"https://daily.dev/#organization"},"potentialAction":{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https://daily.dev/search?q={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}}]} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"DiscussionForumPosting","mainEntityOfPage":"https://daily.dev/posts/a-vpn-connection-is-not-an-authorization-decision-d6a6vr0is","headline":"A VPN connection is not an authorization decision","text":"Discussion about \"A VPN connection is not an authorization decision\" on daily.dev - join the developer community","url":"https://daily.dev/posts/a-vpn-connection-is-not-an-authorization-decision-d6a6vr0is","datePublished":"2026-10-03T13:07:11.969Z","dateModified":"2026-10-03T13:07:11.969Z","author":{"@type":"Person","name":"Auth By Example","url":"https://daily.dev/authbyexample","image":"https://media.daily.dev/image/upload/s--Fgz7IgGQ--/f_auto/v1789653205/avatars/avatar_7EADCwHmOHX0bChEhAPmt?_a=BAMAMicg0","interactionStatistic":{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"EndorseAction"},"userInteractionCount":30}},"interactionStatistic":[{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"LikeAction"},"userInteractionCount":0},{"@type":"InteractionCounter","interactionType":{"@type":"CommentAction"},"userInteractionCount":0}],"isPartOf":{"@type":"WebPage","url":"https://daily.dev/sources/7eadcwhmohx0bchehapmt","name":"Auth By Example"}} {"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https://daily.dev"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Auth By Example","item":"https://daily.dev/sources/7eadcwhmohx0bchehapmt"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"A VPN connection is not an authorization decision"}]} ```