Get best of the week

How the pandemic affected VPN providers

VPN providers record traffic surges, as more and more companies are transferring employees “to the remote”, but some countries are tightening their control over virtual private networks.


Photo - Alina Grubnyak - Unsplash

VPN provider traffic is growing


Rob Smith, R&D director at Gartner, has written the research work Remote Access VPN Is Dead for the past few months. But according to the specialist, now he will have to come up with a new name. Due to the epidemic, more and more organizations are moving employees to telecommuting. This was done on Twitter and Square , Facebook, Apple, Oracle, Google, Microsoft and other companies. As a result, the load on VPN services that are used to connect to corporate networks has sharply increased in the world.

In Iran, Atlas VPN traffic increased by 38%. For Russia and the United States, this figure was36 and 56% respectively. One of the highest jumps was recorded in Italy, which became the focus of the coronavirus in Europe - there, in the second week of March, traffic grew by 112%. NordVPN also notes that the load on their systems has increased by an average of 165%. Most new users live in the Netherlands, Austria, Canada, Belgium and Denmark.

But there's a problem


Many VPN services were not ready for the influx of users. The American company Pulse Security received five times more requests from customers with a request to allocate additional capacity for private networks. According to experts, the expansion of bandwidth can take several hours or even days. The big players weren’t spared the problem either - for example, Amazon was not sure that their corporate infrastructure could handle the load. Therefore, in early March, the IT department asked employees to briefly connect to the VPN in order to test the system.


Photos - Su San Lee - Unsplash

Information security experts are also worried that an increase in the number of VPN users, however paradoxical it may sound, will damage network security. Specialists from the National Cybersecurity Center of Great Britain (NCSC) found a number of critical vulnerabilities in the software products that various providers work with . They allow attackers to steal authorization data and penetrate the corporate private network. Although the corresponding patches are already available, it is likely that not all VPN providers have installed them. And an increase in the volume of traffic passing through their services can open up new attack vectors.

In an attempt to smooth out sharp corners, the NCSC compiled a listIB recommendations for those who work remotely. Since many have not previously worked outside the office and have not previously encountered virtual private networks. But while government organizations in some countries strongly support VPNs, others, on the contrary, use the epidemic as an excuse to tighten regulation of such services.

Who tightens regulation


At the end of last year, China adopted a new law - MLPS 2.0 (Cybersecurity Muti-Level Protection Scheme). It gives law enforcement authorities unlimited access to all data that is on Chinese servers and transmitted over Chinese networks. The law also obliges residents of the country (and foreign companies) to use virtual private networks that have received government accreditation.


Photo - lwzee - Unsplash

In early January, law enforcement authorities arrested a student who sold VPN services to bypass the Golden Shield . The authorities also demanded that Apple remove VPN applications from the Chinese App Store.

MLPS 2.0 has already been put into practice to limit the spread of news about coronavirus. Several VPN providers noted that they have difficulty connecting to the country. According to Greatfire, which monitors VPNs in China, service performance has slowed significantly over the past two months - in some cases, the speed has dropped by 65%.

In general, such activities of the authorities are seriously criticized by the population and international companies. The hope remains that politicians will reconsider the decision and amend the legislation.

:



— ?

More articles:


All Articles