By tightly controlling privileged access, PAM stops credential misuse, reduces the attack surface, and ensures that unauthorized users never reach your most critical systems.
If PAM protects access, then microsegmentation helps isolate and contain threats. Network segmentation is about securing east-west network traffic flow—data moving within your network between application servers, databases, virtual machines, or even microservices. Because this internal traffic never crosses the perimeter, it’s often overlooked by traditional tools. That blind spot is what attackers exploit. Once inside, attackers can move laterally, escalate privileges, and deploy malware—often without setting off alarms.
Protecting east-west traffic is about understanding how users, devices, and applications interact internally and applying strict controls to minimize the risk of lateral movement. While EDR, NDR, identity-based policies, and internal firewalls all help, microsegmentation delivers the strongest safeguard. By isolating workloads and enforcing granular traffic policies, it ensures that even if attackers get in, they can’t freely move across your environment.
It’s not enough to secure access to the front door. You also need to lock down every hallway inside.
Traditionally, organizations had to manage separate tools for PAM and segmentation. That meant more cost, more complexity, and slower adoption. It’s important to remember that implementing cybersecurity strategies doesn’t happen all at once. It’s a progression and a company’s security needs evolve as they grow. Companies often start with password management, credential vaults, and move to full PAM solutions to control privileged credentials, then advance into segmentation to block lateral movement. In the past, this required stitching together multiple vendors and software tools, each with different policies and deployment models.
The 12Port Zero Trust Platform changes the equation by unifying PAM and microsegmentation into one scalable solution:
By consolidating into a single platform, organizations gain the flexibility to start where they need—password vaults, PAM, or segmentation—and expand without switching tools. This makes Zero Trust adoption not only faster, but also more sustainable long-term. You prevent credential theft and misuse, improve auditability, and contain breaches with one consistent framework that grows with your security needs. Plus, one platform is more cost effective and affordable delivering a high ROI than managing and maintaining multiple solutions.
Zero Trust isn’t just about keeping bad actors out. It’s about assuming they’ll find a way in—and making sure they can’t move further. That’s why PAM and microsegmentation are stronger together. It’s about securing access to your network and how the traffic flows once inside the network.
With 12Port Zero Trust platform, you can now secure privileged access at the perimeter and isolate workloads inside your environment from one easy to use platform.
