# The Vendor Vulnerability: 5 Lessons from the Major Breaches of 2025

- Link: https://www.agilicus.com/webinar/2026-03-26-pwned-by-a-partner-why-vendor-vpns-are-a-dumpster-fire/
- Published: 2026-03-04T19:47:26+00:00
- Author: Don Bowman

# The Vendor Vulnerability: 5 Lessons from the Major Breaches of 2025

Land Rover Jaguar and Asahi were just two manufacturing organizations to break headlines
in 2025 for suffering cybersecurity incidents. You are likely still handing out 
VPN keys to your vendors like they are free samples at a grocery store, creating
a porous defence that begs for shenanigans. The result? A massive blast radius when,
not if, that vendor gets compromised.

If you are tired of playing Russian Roulette with your operational technology, it
is time to wake up. We are hosting a blunt, no-nonsense session on how to stop letting
bad actors walk right through your front door using your own keys. We will show 
you how to secure vendor access without making your external partners hate you.

 https://youtu.be/7iBj2LeHTpw

## **Webinar Highlights **

### The Speaker

[⌊don-bowman⌉⌊don-bowman⌉[

#### **Don Bowman, CEO at Agilicus**

Founder and CEO of Agilicus, Don Bowman is an expert in cloud, security, and networking
with 30 years of experience in global Internet, technology, public policy.

Legacy remote access tools like the VPN treat network security like a moat and castle.
A big moat (the firewall) and a squishy, unsegmented interior. Once a vendor uses
the VPN to cross the drawbridge, they have the run of the place. They can touch 
your PLCs, your HMIs, and your SCADA systems. When that vendor suffers a breach,
the attackers ride their connection straight into your sensitive infrastructure.

**In this session you will learn:**

 * **Identity is the new perimeter:** Stop creating accounts. Use **Single Sign-
   On**. Let your vendors use their existing corporate credentials (Google, O365,
   Okta). If they get fired today, their access to your plant floor should die instantly,
   not when you remember to rotate a shared password next month.
 * **Multi-factor authentication is not optional:** If you aren’t verifying that
   a user is who they say they are with something they have (like a YubiKey) or 
   something they are, you are negligent. [CISA has been screaming about this](https://www.cisa.gov/resources-tools/resources/guide-securing-remote-access-software)
   for years.
 * **Precise Authorisation (Zero Trust):** Ditch the network-level access. Give 
   users access to the specific application they need to do their job, and nothing
   else. If they are here to fix a boiler, they shouldn’t be able to ping the payroll
   server.

Stop relying on air gaps that do not exist and VPNs that are unsafe at any speed.
Join us, and let’s turn that dumpster fire into a fortress.

## LEARN MORE ON THE TOPIC

See why manufacturing companies like yours trust Agilicus AnyX for their vendor 
remote access strategies.

[CASE STUDY ](https://www.agilicus.com/case-studies/acme-manufacturing-transforms-security-and-efficiency-with-agilicus-anyx/)

BOOK A MEETING

Ready To Learn More?

Agilicus AnyX Zero Trust enables any user, on any device, secure connectivity to
any resource they need—without a client or VPN. Whether that resource is a web application,
a programmable logic controller, or a building management system, Agilicus can secure
it with multi-factor authentication while keeping the user experience simple with
single sign-on.

[BOOK A MEETING](https://www.agilicus.com/book-calendar-meeting/)

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info@agilicus.com, +1 ‪519 953-4332‬

300-87 King St W, Kitchener, ON, Canada. N2G 1A7

[⌊partner⌉⌊partner⌉[