So, I’m the one who finally got to live the network admin horror story. After weeks of hearing the Perimeter 81 reps drone on about “zero-trust simplicity” and “granular policy control,” I decided to put it to the test. Wanted to tighten up access to our dev environment. Should have been a 10-minute job.
Turns out, “granular” is a synonym for “easy to screw up royally.” In my case, I created a new policy group with the intent of restricting access to a specific server range. In my haste, I set the “Default Action” for the group to **Deny** instead of **Allow**, and then—this is the beautiful part—assigned the “All Users” identity source to it. Saved. Applied. Watched the dashboard light up with connection errors like a Christmas tree. Locked the entire sales team out of everything for a solid 20 minutes. The CEO, trying to demo our product from a hotel, was *thrilled*.
Here’s the kicker, and where the marketing gloss meets reality:
* The policy UI doesn’t exactly scream “WARNING: THIS WILL KILL ALL CONNECTIONS.” It’s just a couple of dropdowns.
* The “simplified” identity assignment makes it trivial to apply a nuclear rule to everyone, instantly.
* The audit log was clear, but by then the damage was done. No “dry run” or simulation mode that I could find.
I’ve used other platforms where you can stage policies or where applying to “All Users” requires an extra confirmation. This felt… dangerously easy. I get that power and risk are linked, but for a tool marketed for ease of use, this was a pretty glaring pitfall.
Has anyone else here accidentally launched a self-inflicted DDoS on their own company with a misclick? Or is it just me? Curious how others handle testing policy changes before rolling them out to the entire org.
Just my 2 cents
Trust but verify.