Remote access is a way of providing access to networks from outside the premises of the network. Virtual Private Network (VPN) is one solution used to provide remote access. Software-Defined Perimeter (SDP) is another solution that is capable of providing access to resources from a remote location. These two technologies use different security models yet provide comparable remote access functionalities. This thesis project investigates the basic components, architecture, and security services of SDP and IPSec VPN. Additionally, a performance evaluation is conducted on SDPand VPN on their connection setup time and network throughput. Our result shows that both SDP and VPN provide secure access, however, SDP has additional features that make it a more secure solution. This thesis project is written in the hopes that it can help enterprises with or without a VPN solution already in place to consider SDP as an alternative solution and learn SDP in comparison with VPN.

The following qualitative research explores the adoption of Zero Trust in organisations from an organisational and user acceptance perspective. From an organisational perspective, the research highlights essential aspects such as testing the Zero Trust architecture in a pre-adoption phase, involving top management in the planning phase, communicating in a non-technical language, and making end-users feel a personal connection to IS security. The research highlights the importance of balancing the ease of use with security, evaluating the end-user's technical maturity, and carrying out evaluations from a user acceptance perspective. To gather valuable empirical data, the researcher has conducted semi-structured interviews with highly competent respondents within the field of Zero Trust. Most of the literature available today within Zero Trust focuses on technical aspects, and this research is a unique and vital contribution to the limited available research.