Jump server replacement is the process of eliminating legacy bastion hosts and jump boxes in favor of modern secure access solutions that enforce identity-based controls, protocol isolation, and full session visibility, without requiring network-level access or an intermediary server.
Jump server replacement isn't a new conversation for OT security teams. The argument against jump servers has been building for years: static credentials, network-level exposure, audit trails that never quite capture what compliance actually needs. What's changed is that the regulatory and threat environment now makes the argument unavoidable.
The jump server, also called a jump host, jump box, or bastion host, was designed as a controlled gateway between users and sensitive network segments. For a long time, it was good enough. Access was limited, environments were more static, and attackers were less sophisticated. The model held.
It doesn't hold anymore. Compliance frameworks have gotten specific about what "controlled access" actually means. Attack patterns have evolved to specifically target the chokepoints that jump servers create. And organizations managing dozens of sites, hundreds of third-party vendors, and increasingly stringent audit requirements have found that jump servers don't scale, they accumulate technical debt.
Jump server replacement addresses that directly: retire the intermediary server and replace it with an architecture that enforces access at the session level, with identity and protocol controls built in from the start.
What is the primary security risk of a legacy jump server? A legacy jump server creates a single, high-value target with broad network access. If compromised, it gives attackers a direct path to every sensitive system it connects to, with no protocol-level containment and limited auditability.
The most common scenario isn't a breach. It's an audit.
An organization gets three months out from a NERC CIP or TSA review, starts pulling together documentation, and realizes that what passes for access control on their jump server is a combination of shared credentials, manually maintained access lists, and session logs that live on a server no one has looked at in six months. The jump server isn't broken. It just can't prove it's doing what compliance says it should be doing.
That's the operational reality that's driving replacement. Here are the three structural reasons it keeps happening:
The attack surface is exactly where attackers look first. Jump servers require broad network access to function. A single compromised credential, a phishing email to the right contractor, a misconfigured firewall rule: any of these can hand an attacker access to a system that, by design, connects to everything sensitive. Because jump servers often hold cached credentials or function as trust anchors for downstream systems, the blast radius of a compromise is disproportionately large.
The operational overhead has become its own liability. Managing jump servers at scale means maintaining static credentials across dozens of accounts, patching an intermediary system that sits in a sensitive network segment, configuring individual access rules manually for every vendor engagement, and building custom logging workflows that still require human interpretation. For organizations managing multiple sites or third-party OEM relationships, this overhead doesn't just cost time. It creates gaps.
The compliance gap is structural, not fixable with add-ons. Session-level auditability, multi-factor authentication, least-privilege access, fine-grained access control by user, role, and time: these are requirements jump servers were never designed to meet. Organizations that have tried to close the gap with MFA add-ons, audit logging tools, and privileged access bolt-ons know how that project goes. The patchwork creates its own audit surface.
What is the risk of using traditional PAM platforms in OT environments? Traditional PAM platforms were built for IT infrastructure. In OT environments they require endpoint agents, internet routing, and network changes that conflict with industrial operational constraints, which is why deployments stall and OT assets end up outside the solution's scope.
When organizations decide to move off jump servers, they don't usually evaluate one alternative. They evaluate three categories, and each has a specific challenge in OT environments.
| Approach | Common Examples | What It Does Well | Why It Stalls in OT |
|
Traditional PAM
|
CyberArk, BeyondTrust, Delinea | Privileged access management across IT infrastructure | Requires endpoint agents, network routing assumptions, and architecture changes that conflict with OT operational constraints. Getting it to work in an air-gapped or partially segmented environment is a project, not a deployment. |
| ZTNA | Zscaler, Cloudflare Access | Identity-based network access for cloud-first environments | Assumes internet routing. Doesn't support legacy OT protocols. Can't operate in air-gapped or partially segmented networks where cloud routing isn't an option. |
| Custom Architecture | RDP Gateway + MFA + session logging tools | Approximates a secure access stack using existing tools | Expensive to maintain, difficult to audit end-to-end, and doesn't scale across sites or vendor relationships. Most teams that land here did so after the first two options stalled. |
| OT-Native Secure Access Gateway | Xona Systems |
Purpose-built OT/ICS secure access |
Designed for OT from the start: no agents on OT assets, no internet routing required, no changes to existing network architecture. Deploys into the environments the others assume away. |
Xona was built for what the others assume away: OT environments where you can't install agents, can't require internet routing, can't touch existing network architecture, and still have to satisfy NERC CIP, IEC 62443, or TSA directives at the next audit.
| Capability | Traditional Jump Server | Modern Secure Access (e.g., Xona) |
| Access model | Network-level | Identity-based, session-level |
| Credential management | Static, often shared | Injected, never exposed to the user |
| Protocol support | Limited; varies by configuration | Isolated proxied protocols:RDP, VNC, SSH, Web |
| Multi-factor authentication | Requires third-party add-on | Native |
| Session recording | Manual/inconsistent | Full, automatic, exportable |
| Third-party vendor access | Manual credential hand-off | Scoped, time-limited, auditable |
| Compliance reporting | Manual extraction | Automated audit logs |
| OT/ICS compatibility | Requires VPN or network changes | Agentless; no footprint on OT assets |
| Attack surface | High (network exposure) | Minimal (browser-based, disconnected) |
Do NERC CIP, IEC 62443, or TSA directives require jump server replacement? No framework mandates replacement by name, but all require capabilities that legacy jump servers cannot provide natively: session-level auditability, MFA, least-privilege access, and fine-grained access controls. Organizations using jump servers to satisfy these mandates are typically relying on compensating controls that auditors are increasingly pushing back on.
No major compliance framework uses the phrase "jump server replacement" by name, but their requirements are functionally incompatible with how legacy jump servers operate. Organizations still using jump servers to satisfy these mandates are typically doing it with compensating controls, and those compensating controls are what auditors are starting to push back on.
NERC CIP (Critical Infrastructure Protection) NERC CIP requires Electronic Access Controls and Monitoring (EACM), multi-factor authentication for interactive remote access, and sufficient session capture to reconstruct user activity on critical cyber assets. Static-credential jump servers cannot satisfy these requirements without significant bolt-on tooling, and that patchwork introduces its own audit risk. The question auditors are increasingly asking isn't whether you have a jump server. It's whether you can prove, session by session, who did what and when.
IEC 62443 IEC 62443 requires enforcing least privilege, separating users from systems, and maintaining detailed access logs across ICS environments. Jump servers, by design, grant users elevated and often broad access at the network level. That is the structural opposite of least privilege. The standard doesn't require you to replace your jump server. It requires access controls that jump servers weren't built to provide.
TSA Security Directives (SD02E and related) TSA directives targeting pipeline and surface transportation operators require access restricted to the minimum necessary, MFA for remote access, and continuous monitoring. The specificity around third-party vendor access is where legacy architectures create the most direct compliance exposure. Most operators have more vendor access events than they realize, and most of those events run through credentials that are shared, static, and not individually auditable.
NIS2 (European Network and Information Security Directive) NIS2 requires operators of essential services to implement access control policies, manage privileged access, and maintain audit logs. For organizations with EU operations, the cost of layering compensating controls onto jump server architectures to achieve NIS2 compliance typically exceeds the cost of replacement. That math is what's moving timelines.
How does a browser-based access gateway replace a jump server? A browser-based access gateway proxies each session between the user and the target system, handling credential injection and protocol translation without creating a direct network connection. The OT asset sees only the gateway. The user's device never touches the network.
Xona was built for OT environments where operational continuity is the constraint everything else gets designed around. You don't rip out the network. You don't install agents on PLCs. You don't ask your OT team to change how systems communicate. You add Xona.
The platform eliminates the jump server by establishing a disconnected, browser-based access gateway. Users connect to Xona, and Xona proxies the session to the authorized system: an HMI via RDP, a historian via VNC, a PLC management interface via SSH or Web. The OT asset never knows who is on the other end. The user never touches the network. The session is recorded in full.
Here is what that means in practice, not just on a features list:
Credential injection means your third-party vendors complete their work, close the session, and never learn the password they just used. If that vendor's laptop is compromised a week later, there is nothing to extract. The credential was never on their machine.
Protocol isolation means the attack can't cross the session boundary. Even if a user's endpoint is fully compromised, the breach stops at the protocol layer. OT assets are not network-exposed regardless of what happens on the user side.
Role- and time-based access means the access policy is the documentation. When an auditor asks for evidence of least-privilege enforcement, the policy records answer the question. There is no manual log to cross-reference.
Full session recording captures keystrokes, screen activity, and commands in a tamper-evident log that satisfies the audit requirements of NERC CIP, IEC 62443, and TSA directives without anyone having to build a custom reporting workflow around it.
No endpoint agent required. Xona deploys without installing software on OT assets. For environments where endpoint modification is operationally restricted, contractually prohibited, or just not something anyone wants to touch, that's not a nice-to-have. It's the requirement.