INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
About the authorSebastian is the founder of hide.me VPN and he has been working in the internet security industry for over a decade
He started hide.me VPN, 6 years ago to make internet security and privacy accessible to everybody.Trusted by millions of freedom seekers
across the globe, VPN services strive to offer their users the utmost in privacy but also, maximum security
On that basis you should rightly hope that your chosen VPN provider would be able to pass muster via some kind of information systems audit
Indeed it seems that more and more VPN providers are announcing the results of such audits to prove to the world that they have nothing to
hide and that everything is above board.Within the VPN industry, audits are certainly becoming a trend as providers look to legitimise their
claims and market a holier-than-thou existence
In the last couple of years, independent auditing has proved to be an efficient way for VPN service providers to test their security
features, as well as provide their customers with more than just promises
expertise, this type of auditing is certainly picking up speed and gaining awareness in the wider world.(Image credit: Startup Stock Photos
/ Pixabay)What your VPN provider shouldn't be recordingSo what kind of information can a VPN provider potentially have on you if you decide
any record of the following activities;Your browsing activitiesYour connection logsRecords of the VPN IPs assigned to youYour original
queries generated by youAny VPN should be committed to the online privacy and security of its users and as part of that commitment, it
should be reasonable for users to expect that any VPN perform a security audit of both its systems and its no-log policy
VPN providers including Tunnelbear, NordVPN and ExpressVPN have all announced the results of such audits and now claim zero-log policies and
no recording of their users' activity online
We actually had our audit done nearly 4 years ago which does beg the question: why has it taken others companies so long to catch up?Using a
no log VPN service should mean that your provider does not collect or log any of your activity online
For peace of mind (and maximum privacy) it is sensible to choose a no log VPN provider.Independent audits as a featureBeing able to point to
the results of an audit should rightly be held in the same bracket as things such as speed, price, number of servers etc when people come to
In fact, it is arguably the most important factor to consider
traffic, then why on earth would anybody sign up for such a service?We should also consider the credentials of any such company carrying out
these audits and how robust their reporting actually is
Each category should then have a set of criteria upon which these providers can be rated
Ideally, only providers who could fulfill all criteria should be certified
Security testing should determine that web application security levels are high and that no high risk or medium risk vulnerabilities are
Source code security analysis is also important here to determine that best security practices are being used in application development
of caution - an independent audit is not a silver bullet and some announcements regarding VPN audits have to be taken with a pinch of salt
PureVPN were, after all, caught red-handed giving out user information to the FBI - so much for not keeping logs
After only a few weeks on from this scandal, PureVPN updated its privacy policy to reveal (in a transparent manner) just how much they were
taking care of the privacy of their users
Caveat emptor! Also, there is nothing to stop a VPN to start to log user activity AFTER the audit is done
Any audit is a momentum picture capturing the very time of the audit - ultimately you still have to trust the provider
It is also worth pointing out that many VPN providers disclose how they process Personally Identifiable Information (PII) and there are a
few that process more data than required to provision the VPN account and connection.With many of the major VPN providers checking their
services for potential vulnerabilities, independent audits look to be an effective way to back-up the security and privacy claims that such
And with some of the high-profile logging cases eroding negatively impacting upon user trust ( e.g
With the number of VPN providers growing day by day, these audits could well become the de-facto consumer standard for choosing the best
provider.Sebastian Schaub, CEO of hide.meWe've also highlighted the best VPN services of 2019NtQgopRbkgZAyZ973AhjoP.jpg?#
