Eliana Willis

Latest story

125 Shares19 Views

Verizon and Samsung complete virtualised 5G trial on C-band spectrum

by

Verizon and Samsung said on Tuesday they have completed a fully virtualised 5G data session over C-band spectrum — from 4GHz to 8GHz — in a live network environment. The session was done in preparation for the US telco’s expansion of its 5G Ultra Wideband serivce, its mmWave service, which will use its newly acquired C-band spectrum. The pair’s trials were conducted over Verizon’s network in Texas, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. They used Samsung’s virtualised RAN (vRAN) solution, which is built on its own software stack, and C-band 64T64R Massive MIMO radio in coordination with Verizon’s virtualised core. The trials achieved speeds level with that of traditional hardware equipment, the pair claimed. “We have been driving the industry to large scale virtualisation using the advanced architecture we have built into our network from the core to the far edge. This recent accomplishment paves the way for a more programmable, efficient, and scalable 5G network,” Verizon senior vice president of technology planning Adam Koeppe said. See also: The winner in the war on Huawei is SamsungAccording to Verizon and Samsung, virtualisation is “critical” for delivering services promised by advanced 5G networks, such as massive scale IoT solutions, autonomous robotics in manufacturing, and smart city solutions.

Cloud-native virtualised architecture will offer greater flexibility, faster delivery of services, greater scalability, and improved cost efficiency in networks, paving the way for wider scale mobile edge computing and network slicing, they said. The technology will also allow Verizon to rapidly respond to customers’ varied latency and computing needs, they added. By the first quarter of next year, the US telco said it expects to put its new 5G C-band spectrum into service in 46 markets, with its 5G Ultra Wideband service to be made available to 100 million people. Coverage will expand to 175 million people over 2022 and 2023, the company said.  When the remaining C-band spectrum is cleared for use, Verizon will offer its 5G Ultra Wideband service on C-band to 250 million people in 2024, it added. Last year, Samsung signed a deal worth $6.6 billion to supply Verizon with network equipment. RELATED COVERAGE More

More stories

  • 125 Shares19 Views

    in Networking

    Verizon and Samsung complete virtualised 5G trial on C-band spectrum

    Verizon and Samsung said on Tuesday they have completed a fully virtualised 5G data session over C-band spectrum — from 4GHz to 8GHz — in a live network environment. The session was done in preparation for the US telco’s expansion of its 5G Ultra Wideband serivce, its mmWave service, which will use its newly acquired C-band spectrum. The pair’s trials were conducted over Verizon’s network in Texas, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. They used Samsung’s virtualised RAN (vRAN) solution, which is built on its own software stack, and C-band 64T64R Massive MIMO radio in coordination with Verizon’s virtualised core. The trials achieved speeds level with that of traditional hardware equipment, the pair claimed. “We have been driving the industry to large scale virtualisation using the advanced architecture we have built into our network from the core to the far edge. This recent accomplishment paves the way for a more programmable, efficient, and scalable 5G network,” Verizon senior vice president of technology planning Adam Koeppe said. See also: The winner in the war on Huawei is SamsungAccording to Verizon and Samsung, virtualisation is “critical” for delivering services promised by advanced 5G networks, such as massive scale IoT solutions, autonomous robotics in manufacturing, and smart city solutions.

    Cloud-native virtualised architecture will offer greater flexibility, faster delivery of services, greater scalability, and improved cost efficiency in networks, paving the way for wider scale mobile edge computing and network slicing, they said. The technology will also allow Verizon to rapidly respond to customers’ varied latency and computing needs, they added. By the first quarter of next year, the US telco said it expects to put its new 5G C-band spectrum into service in 46 markets, with its 5G Ultra Wideband service to be made available to 100 million people. Coverage will expand to 175 million people over 2022 and 2023, the company said.  When the remaining C-band spectrum is cleared for use, Verizon will offer its 5G Ultra Wideband service on C-band to 250 million people in 2024, it added. Last year, Samsung signed a deal worth $6.6 billion to supply Verizon with network equipment. RELATED COVERAGE More

  • 63 Shares12 Views

    in Robotics

    GE made an earthworm robot

    Robots that dig underground are getting lots of development attention thanks to DARPA, the Pentagon’s research funding arm. The latest example? An earthworm from GE.The GE robot is part of DARPA’s Underminer program. According to the agency:DARPA has selected three performers to develop technologies and solutions for the Underminer program that would surpass current commercial drilling capabilities. Underminer aims to demonstrate the feasibility of rapidly constructing tactical tunnel networks to provide secure logistics infrastructure to pre-position supplies or resupply troops as they move through an area.DARPA is also rounding third base on its SubT (Subterranean) Challenge, which “seeks novel approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments during time-sensitive combat operations or disaster response scenarios.” The final events for the virtual and systems challenges will take place in late September of this year.

    [embedded content]

    GE’s earthworm robot is bio-inspired, drawing inspiration from the wriggly worm, and like its prototype its soft, putting it in a class of robots that don’t have hard exterior bodies. The earthworm robot is powered by fluidic muscles and has undergone successful trials through a year-and-a-half long demonstration period.”Through this project, we have truly broken new ground in advancing autonomous and soft robotic designs,” Deepak Trivedi, a GE researcher leading the project, said. “By creating a smaller footprint that can navigate extreme turning radiuses, function autonomously, and reliably operate through rugged, extreme environments, we’re opening up a whole new world of potential applications that go well beyond commercially available technologies.” The prototype earthworm, which made a 10 cm diameter tunnel, autonomously dug underground at GE’s Niskayuna, NY, research campus, achieving a distance comparable to available trenchless digging machines.”The ability of GE’s robot to operate reliably in rugged, extreme environments is, to our knowledge, a first in soft robotic design,” said Trivedi.

    If a military-funded earthworm sounds terrifying, DARPA outlined the need for digging technologies in the run up to the SubT.As underground settings become increasingly relevant to global security and safety, innovative and enhanced technologies have the potential to disruptively and positively impact subterranean military and civilian operations. To explore these possibilities, DARPA has issued a Request for Information (RFI) to augment its understanding of state-of-the-art technologies that could enable future systems to rapidly map and navigate unknown complex subterranean environments to locate objects of interest, e.g., trapped survivors, without putting humans in harm’s way.The earthworm, for its part, has potential broad utility, including in inspection and repair tasks.”In the future, we want to enable deeper, in-situ inspection and repair capabilities that would enable more on-wing inspection and repairs or enable major power generation equipment like gas and steam turbines to be inspected and repaired without removing them from service for lengthy periods of time,” Trivedi said. “The advancements we have made on this project support key developments needed to make that possible.” More

  • 125 Shares18 Views

    in Information Technology

    Microsoft Teams just got this new protection against phishing attacks

    Microsoft Teams has gained new Defender ‘Safe Links’ phishing protection to protect users against potentially dangeros phishing URLs.The additional phishing protection in Teams is available for organizations using Defender for Office 365 to guard against phishing attacks that use weaponized URLs. While email is the standard medium for delivering phishing links, Teams usage exploded during the pandemic, making it an attractive target for phishing.As Microsoft outlined earlier this year as part of its ‘hybrid work messaging’, time spent in Teams meetings grew 2.5 times globally between February 2020 and February 2021. Teams users now send 45 percent more chats per week on average, and 42 percent more chats per person after hours too.”Safe Links in Defender for Office 365 scans URLs at the time of click to ensure that users are protected with the latest intelligence from Microsoft Defender. We’re super excited to announce that this capability is now generally available,” Microsoft says in a blogpost. Given the massive shift to Teams chat and video over the past year, it’s sensible to make Safe Links — a feature of Defender for Office 365 since 2015 — available to the communications platform. Microsoft previewed the phishing protection feature for Teams in April.  Safe Links click protection can scan links in Teams conversations, group chats, and channels. Safe Links does a real-time scan and verification of URLs at the time a user clicks the link. Each month Microsoft’s ‘detonation systems’ detect almost 2 million unique URL-based payloads created by attackers for phishing. Microsoft monthly blocks over 100 million phishing emails with these booby-trapped URLs.  Microsoft scans URLs at the time they are clicked by a user because, Microsoft explains, attackers have learned to send benign links that redirect post-click to avoid detection.

    “As detection technologies evolve to block malicious sites quicker, sending malicious links to users becomes less effective. So attackers evolve their attacks. Instead of sending malicious links to users, attackers now send benign links. Once the link has been delivered, the attacker redirects the link to a malicious site,” Microsoft notes. Admins configure Safe Links to protect Teams users by tweaking the policy in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal. Admins can view Microsoft’s documentation for Safe Links here. More

  • 113 Shares

    in Information Technology

    ANAO: Auditing not driving improvements in Commonwealth cybersecurity adherence

    The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) has said it considered continued transparency through reporting to Parliament where cybersecurity risk is concerned to be a positive, but it remained concerned that this may not be enough to drive improvement. In documentation [PDF] prepared for the Joint Committee of Public Accounts and Audit (JCPAA), ANAO said it was clear that auditing and reporting alone has not driven improvement in compliance with the government’s cybersecurity policy. “Non-corporate Commonwealth entities have not been held to account for not meeting the mandatory cybersecurity requirements under PSPF Policy 10,” it wrote, in reference to the Protective Security Policy Framework (PSPF) Policy 10, which is centred on safeguarding information from cyber threats. “The current framework to support responsible ministers in holding entities accountable within government is not sufficient to drive improvements in the implementation of mandatory requirements.”The JCPAA last year reviewed a pair of reports from ANAO and handed down a number of recommendations in its own report published in December. One of the recommendations asked ANAO to consider conducting an annual limited assurance review into the cyber resilience of Commonwealth entities.”The review should examine and report on the extent to which entities have embedded a cyber resilience culture through alignment with the ANAO’s framework of 13 behaviours and practices,” JCPAA asked. “The review should also examine the compliance of corporate and non-corporate entities with the Essential Eight mitigation strategies in the Information Security Manual and be conducted for five years, commencing from June 2022.”ANAO said implementing the recommendation has posed a number of practical challenges from an audit perspective, with the first being it considers there to likely be cybersecurity risk concerns raised by ASD.

    “ASD has advised that a system-level report would pose cyber risks that it believes would be unacceptable. Given ASD is the technical expert, it is best placed to assess those risks and therefore difficult for the ANAO to take a different view,” it said. ANAO also considers the scope proposed in the recommendation as challenging, given that only non-corporate Commonwealth entities are mandated to apply the PSPF. It said the fact that there are currently 98 non-corporate entities subject to the policy has also created a scope challenge. “The absence of assurance over material reported by entities to AGD in their self-assessments means that audit procedures would need to be conducted across the population of entities’ self-assessments (whole or risk-based sample) to assure accuracy,” ANAO added.It also said limited assurance procedures do not result in a report, which informs the Parliament about the actual implementation of cybersecurity requirement.”Current ANAO work in cybersecurity in both financial statements audits (IT controls) and in performance audits indicate that the ANAO is likely to find issues with the accuracy of self-assessments,” it wrote. “In the event that accuracy issues are found, the ANAO would conclude that the report could not be relied upon, but would not report on whether entities actually do meet the requirements of the PSPF.”RELATED COVERAGEANAO finds two government departments inaccurately self-reported cyber complianceThe Audit Office report shows the Attorney-General’s Department and Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet did not accurately self-report full implementation of one or more Top Four mitigation strategies.ACSC introduces Essential Eight zero level cyber maturity and aligns levels to tradecraftOverhaul of Essential Eight Maturity Model sees levels aligned with the sophistication of cyber tradecraft to attempt to prevent.Cybersecurity the responsibility of agencies, not us, AGD and ASD sayDespite being responsible for setting cybersecurity policy and monitoring its adherence across the board, the Attorney-General’s Department and the Department of Defence have said it’s the responsibility of Commonwealth entities themselves and any questions should be directed as such. More

  • 63 Shares18 Views

    in Information Technology

    Brazil creates cyberattack response network

    Brazil has created a cyberattack response network aimed at promoting faster response to cyber threats and vulnerabilities through the coordination between federal government bodies. Created through a presidential decree signed on July 16, the Federal Cyber Incident Management Network will encompass the Institutional Security Office of the presidency as well as all bodies and entities under the federal government administration. Public companies, mixed capital companies and their subsidiaries may become members of the network on a voluntary basis. The network will be coordinated by the Information Security Department of the Office of Institutional Security of the presidency, through the government’s Center for Prevention, Treatment and Response to Cybersecurity Incidents.The Digital Government Secretariat (DGS), which operates under the the Special Secretariat for Management and Digital Government of the Ministry of Economy, will have a strategic role in the formation of the network. The DGS is the central body of SISP, a system utilized for planning, coordinating, organizing, operating, controlling and supervising the federal government’s information technology resources across more than 200 bodies.

    According to the DGS, the information sharing outlined in the decree that creates the network is expected to improve the articulation of SISP in terms of prevention of incidents, as well as actions required in a possible cyberattack. The Secretariat also implied that there is an expectation that public companies such as Dataprev, the government’s social security technology and information company, and Serpro, the federal data processing service, will join the initiative even though their participation is not compulsory.Having immediate knowledge about attacks as well as potential vulnerabilities being exploited will enable the Secretariat to alert other bodies to enforce the necessary containment measures, it noted, adding that another area of focus could include the development of guides and training to address the main issues identified by the network.Mentioning Brazil’s improvement in the latest Global Cyber Security Index by the United Nations, where Brazil rose 53 positions in the ranking from the 70th place in 2018 to the 18th position in 2021 – the best result across all of Latin America – digital government and management secretary Caio Mario Paes de Andrade noted the creation of the network will help the Brazilian federal government to further strengthen its role in confronting cyber threats.

    “The advancement of digital transformation must be accompanied by the protection of users and we have ensured this protection”, the secretary noted. “The network’s rational is to further foster the culture of coordinated confrontation within the government, so that we can continue advancing on the issue of cyber security.”According to a survey released earlier this month, Brazilians are concerned about the security of their data. The survey has found that the fear of cyber attacks is high among Brazilian users, with 73% of respondents reported having suffered some kind of digital threat, such as receiving fake messages from companies and stolen passwords. More

  • 113 Shares20 Views

    in Networking

    F5 Networks beats expectations, delivers strong fiscal Q3 numbers

    Application security company F5 Networks delivered better-than-expected third quarter financial results, reporting non-GAAP net income of $169 million, or $2.76 per diluted share, on revenue of non-GAAP $586 million.Third quarter fiscal year 2021 GAAP revenue was $652 million, beating Wall Street’s expectations of $623 million and earnings of $2.45 per share.Also: F5 to acquire multi-cloud security software maker Volterra for $500 million, raises financial outlook F5 planned to deliver revenue in the range of $620 million to $650 million for Q3, with non-GAAP earnings in the range of $2.36 to $2.54 per diluted share, according to a statement from the company. The company announced earlier this year that it would acquire distributed multi-cloud application security and load-balancing software company Volterra of Santa Clara, California. The move raised revenue expectations for Q2 up to $623 million. F5 shares are up .23% at $192.62 in after-hours trading.For the current quarter, F5 expects to deliver revenue in the range of $660 million to $680 million, with non-GAAP earnings in the range of $2.68 to $2.80 per diluted share.

    François Locoh-Donou, F5’s President and CEO, said “robust software growth and resilient demand for systems drove 12% GAAP revenue growth in our third quarter, and 11% revenue growth versus the prior year’s third quarter non-GAAP revenue.””Customers’ traditional applications are generating more revenue and more engagement than ever before. At the same time, customers also are accelerating adoption of modern application architectures, like Kubernetes, for new applications,” he added. 

    Tech Earnings More

  • 125 Shares20 Views

    in Information Technology

    Kaseya denies paying ransom for decryptor, refuses comment on NDA

    Software company Kaseya has denied paying a ransom for a universal decryptor after days of lingering questions about how the tool was obtained. On July 21, the company announced that a universal decryption tool had been obtained “from a third party” and that they were working with security company Emsisoft to help victims of the sprawling ransomware attack. On Monday, Kaseya released a statement denying rumors that they paid a ransom to REvil, the ransomware group that launched the attack. REvil initially released a ransom demand of $70 million but reportedly lowered it to $50 million before their entire operation went dark on July 13.”We are confirming in no uncertain terms that Kaseya did not pay a ransom — either directly or indirectly through a third party — to obtain the decryptor,” Kaseya’s statement said. “While each company must make its own decision on whether to pay the ransom, Kaseya decided after consultation with experts to not negotiate with the criminals who perpetrated this attack and we have not wavered from that commitment.”The statement goes on to address reports suggesting that their “continued silence on whether Kaseya paid the ransom may encourage additional ransomware attacks.” 

    Kaseya attack

    According to the statement, Emsisoft and Kaseya’s Incident Response team worked through the weekend providing the decryptor to some of the 1,500 victims affected by the attack, which included a major supermarket chain in Sweden, Virginia Tech University and the local government computers in Leonardtown, Maryland. 

    The company said it is encouraging any victims to come forward, adding that the tool “has proven 100% effective at decrypting files that were fully encrypted in the attack.”While the news of a universal decyptor was welcomed by hundreds of affected victims, some noted that there was a non-disclosure agreement that Kaseya was forcing companies to sign in exchange for the decryptor. CNN confirmed that Kaseya was requiring the non-disclosure agreement in order to gain access to the decryptor. Kaseya spokesperson Dana Liedholm and multiple cybersecurity companies involved told ZDNet they were unable to comment on the non-disclosure agreement. Former White House Chief Information Officer and cybersecurity expert Theresa Payton said non-disclosure agreements after attacks are more common that one would think but noted that “asking for an NDA from victims is not an everyday, every incident practice.” “When a cyber incident impacts multiple victims in a supply chain attack, sometimes the legal counsel will ask victims to sign an NDA to ensure that the fix for the problem does not get disclosed publicly,” Payton said. Payton added that the reasons behind asking for a non-disclosure agreement are not always nefarious and urged companies to consult their lawyers before signing anything. “If the reason behind the NDA is to ensure that the 3rd party that provided the key is not disclosed and the manner in which the decryption is made available is not disclosed, then the NDA makes a lot of sense,” Payton told ZDNet. “We don’t want to tip our hands publicly to the cyber operatives behind any of the ransomware syndicates. We need to keep the nefarious cyber operatives guessing. If the NDA is not for that reason and is instead a legal maneuver to avoid lawsuits that is disappointing. Given the large impact, it is understandable why their legal counsel might recommend the NDA for legal protections.” Mark Kedgley, CTO at New Net Technologies, said it was an extremely rare set of circumstances considering Kaseya is both the exploited vendor and the provider of the decryption kit. He added that the NDA “will help diminish further analysis and discussion of the attack.” “While you could see this would be desirable for Kaseya, it won’t further the cyber security community’s understanding of the breach,” Kedgley said.  More

  • 125 Shares18 Views

    in Networking

    Best cheap VPN 2021: VPN services under $2 a month

    One of the questions I’m asked most often by readers is: Why do VPNs have to be so expensive? Many of these folks say they loath to add yet another fee to their monthly bills or that they are operating on a limited budget. Must read: The best free VPNs: Why they don’t exist

    ZDNet Recommends

    Many have read my advice about staying away from free VPNs because it’s unclear how those vendors make their money or even whether or not your data is being mined as it’s transiting across the free VPN providers’ networks. So, they understand it’s better when VPN vendors make their money from their customers rather than from shadowy marketing or even criminal enterprises. That said, some of my readers have asked me whether there are cheap VPN providers we can recommend. Yes, with some caveats. First, what is “cheap?” For some folks, cheap might be under $10 per month. While for others, cheap is under a buck. Since I didn’t find any VPN deals for less than a dollar a month, I’m arbitrarily defining “cheap” as less than $2 per month. At that price point, we’re entering something of uncharted space. I’m going to “recommend” 4 services that are all between $1 and $2 a month. The gotcha is that I haven’t tested any of these services, and I haven’t found much in the way of in-depth reviews other than listings in “best of” lists. So, you pays your money and you takes your chance. With that caution out of the way, let’s take a little walk on the wild side.  

    $1.67 per month (pay $60.12 at point of purchase)

    Best price: $60.12 for three years ($1.67 per month)Trial: 30-day refund guaranteePlatforms: Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Linux, and moreSimultaneous connections: 5Kill switch: YesLogging: NoneCountries: 62Let’s kick this off with VyprVPN (there’s no “e” in Vypr). VyprVPN is a service of Golden Frog, a company founded by serial Internet founders Ron and Carolyn Yokubaitis. Golden Frog is incorporated in Switzerland.Of the super-cheap VPNs we’re including in this article, VyprVPN is the one with the most flexibility for business customers. The company offers a full SDK to integrate VyprVPN into other, third-party proprietary solutions.One such customer of that SDK is QNAP, one of the NAS vendors we reviewed particularly positively. We found this quote from Y.T. Lee, Vice President QNAP, particularly relevant because it speaks to the performance of the VyprVPN network.”We selected VyprVPN due to the performance and speed of their network. Golden Frog has invested in its back-end infrastructure and is the only personal VPN provider that manages its entire infrastructure without third parties. They have an outstanding software development team who creates intuitive applications, and we couldn’t be more excited to offer VyprVPN to our customers.”

    View Now at VyprVPN

    $1 per month (pay $24 at point of purchase)

    Best price: $24 for two years ($1.00 per month)Trial: 30-day refund guaranteePlatforms: No apps(!)Simultaneous connections: UnspecifiedKill switch: No ideaLogging: NoneCountries: 8Our next contender is LimeVPN, and… I’m not entirely sure about these folks. They claim a $1 per monthnth service on their home page, which would make them the least expensive on this list. But when you click the ‘Join Now’ button, that offer is nowhere to be found. It turns out you first have to hit the ‘Join Now’ button, see the more expensive offering, click into that offering, and then sign up for the 2-year plan. Whew. Way to promote your best plan, LimeVPN!We also couldn’t find out anything about who was providing this service. Their “about” page says, “LimeVPN is a team of skilled IT professionals with more than 10 years experience in the IT industry.” So is that 10 folks with a year of experience each? Or 2 guys with 5 years of experience each? Or does each worker have a decade of experience? It doesn’t matter, ’cause this service is cheap, cheap, cheap.On the plus side, the company says it uses 256-bit encryption with a 2048-bit key (over the usual VPN protocols). Interestingly, the company also states, “No 3rd parties – Our own VPN servers, our DNS, our code, our engineers.” It could be interesting if they control their own servers, even if they only operate in eight countries.Also, the service doesn’t come with any of the usual VPN apps. The service does have a hefty help library, but you’ll need to find and configure your own VPN programs to use LimeVPN. So, there’s that.

    View Now at LimeVPN

    $1.39 per month (pay $50.04 at point of purchase)

    Best price: $50.04 for three years ($1.39 per month)Trial: 30-day refund guaranteePlatforms: Windows, MacOS, Android, iOSSimultaneous connections: Unlimited*Kill switch: YesLogging: Payment information onlyCountries: 27Atlas VPN is the second least expensive VPN service we found. That said, we were kind of (happily) surprised that the company has enlisted the services of an outside company to perform a security audit. That’s good practice.Compared to higher-priced VPN providers, the number of locations offered by Atlas VPN is pretty small. The company operates about 500 servers, compared to the tens of thousands of servers operated by its more expensive competitors.We did like that the company uses a warrant canary, which helps you know whether or not the company has been asked to cooperate with government investigations. Atlas VPN is a service of Peakstart Technologies Inc, a US company registered in Delaware.*Keep in mind that “unlimited” is never unlimited. If you push their system or otherwise impact service performance, you’re likely to be limited

    View Now at Atlas VPN

    $1.64 per month (pay 59.04 at point of purchase)

    Best price: $59.04 for three years ($1.64 per month)Trial: 30-day refund guaranteePlatforms: Windows, MacOS, Android, iOS, Linux, and moreSimultaneous connections: Unlimited*Kill switch: YesLogging: NoneCountries: 79According to its ‘About Page’, ZenMate is a German company founded by Simon Specka and his buddy Markus. The company was incubated in the Axel Springer Plug and Play Accelerator and looks to have some German venture capital funding.In terms of the client experience, the service offers simple one-click apps that are clean and well-designed. Additionally, there are installation guides for using ZenMate with smart TVs, routers, and gaming platforms.I do have some concerns due to an expose posted by my CNET colleague Rae Hodge. In it, she points out that ZenMate was purchased in 2018 by notorious scareware provider Kape Technologies. The company claims it’s given up its evil ways, but before installing ZenMate on your systems, I recommend you read Rae’s article.*Same caution as above. “Unlimited” is never truly unlimited.

    View Now at ZenMate VPN

    So there you go. Four VPNs that cost less than $2 per month when you buy 2 or 3 years at once. If you have room in your budget or you want to learn more about the benefits of VPN, see my complete guide:  Best VPN 2021: Top VPNs reviewed and compared.

    If I have a VPN to my office, do I need a VPN service?

    The VPN to your office will secure your link to your office. If you want to secure your link anywhere else, you’ll need a VPN service.

    Should I use a VPN on my phone or tablet?

    If it’s your data and you want it to be secure, yes. The same choices are valid regardless of what kind of device you use to transmit and receive data over the Internet.

    Does a VPN slow down your connection?

    Let’s be clear: Using a VPN does add a bit of a load on your computer and can often slow down your connection. That’s because your data is encrypted, decrypted, and sent through intermediate servers. Game responsiveness might suffer. If you’re a first-person shooter player, you might have enough lag to lose the shot. That said, both computers and VPNs have gotten much faster. When I first used a VPN, every… thing…slowed… down… to… an… unbearable… c-r-a-w-l. But now, the negative impact is almost unnoticeable, and at least one service we spotlight below (Hotspot Shield) actually increased performance, making it one of the fastest VPNs we’ve seen.Also, most (but not all!) of the VPN providers we spotlight limit the number of devices you can connect simultaneously, so you may have to pick and choose which home devices connect.

    What’s the best free VPN service?

    We’re spotlighting paid services in this article, although some of them offer a free tier. I generally don’t recommend free VPN services because I don’t consider them secure. Think about this: Running a good VPN service requires hundreds of servers worldwide and a ton of networking resources. It’s boo-coo expensive. If you’re not paying to support that infrastructure, who is? Probably advertisers or data miners. If you use a free service, your data or your eyeballs will probably be sold, and that’s never a good thing. After all, you’re using a VPN, so your data remains secure. You wouldn’t want to have all that data go to some company to sift through — it completely defeats the purpose.Now, before you choose a VPN service, free or paid, I want to make it clear that no one tool can guarantee your privacy. First, anything can be hacked. But more to the point, a VPN protects your data from your computer to the VPN service. It doesn’t protect what you put on servers. It doesn’t protect your data from the VPN provider’s VPN servers to whatever site or cloud-based application you’re using. It doesn’t give you good passwords or multifactor authentication. Privacy and security require you to be diligent throughout your digital journey, and VPNs, while quite helpful, are not a miracle cure.

    You can follow my day-to-day project updates on social media. Be sure to follow me on Twitter at @DavidGewirtz, on Facebook at Facebook.com/DavidGewirtz, on Instagram at Instagram.com/DavidGewirtz, and on YouTube at YouTube.com/DavidGewirtzTV.

    ZDNet Recommends More