Does Your Business Need VPN Encryption?

As more and more stories of data theft and hacking keep surfacing, businesses are finding the digital world to be quite daunting. No matter how safe you think you are, one breach could be all it takes to shut down your operations completely for a day, or sometimes permanently.

Cybercriminals lurk in the dark, at every corner, and even if they don’t drain your bank account, they still can cost you big bucks. That’s why so many organizations are looking to VPN encryption to help them stay safe and in business.

If you are wondering whether VPN encrypting is the right solution for your business, read on for some important details to help you better understand how a VPN can help keep your data secure.

The Cold, Hard Reality of Data Breaches

CISCO conducted a study and discovered that 40% of small businesses that endured a major cyber-attack had to incur at least eight hours of downtime, which handled a sizeable portion of the total cost of the security breach.

Further, there is a report that 83% of small and medium-sized companies do not have the money to recover should they get hit by a cyber-attack. Despite such a threat, 91% of small businesses do not carry cyber liability insurance.

VPN Encryption

An encrypted connection protects your sensitive data. It enhances communication security between a client app and its remote server.

A VPN, or Virtual Private Network, sends your Internet traffic on the web through a VPN tunnel. The VPN tunnel is an encrypted connection that is between the device you are using and your remote VPN provider server somewhere on the web. A VPN tunnel masks your location and IP address besides encrypting your data. 

Ultimately, a third party can’t see or misuse your online data because the VPN encryption scrambled it for you. That’s why Google Trends reported a growing interest in “VPN” with more searches being conducted on the topic. The highest was in the United States and China.

Benefits of VPN Encrypting

While a business VPN offers a ton of benefits, most importantly, it will secure your network effectively.

A website or application can track your online activity without you even knowing about it. They’ll analyze the data they collect from you to target you for advertising.

If you don’t use a VPN connection, you may find an increase in pop-up ads arriving while you search the web. This form of advertising is an interruption and a nuisance.

VPN encrypting can prevent software and web browsers from accessing your connection. The information that you receive and transmit is now kept secure. It’s anonymous.

Hide Your Private Information

A VPN encryption is beneficial for hiding your private information and that of your business on the public internet. Hackers are crafty with intercepting sensitive information.

Once they have your private details, they can be imposters. They will attempt to impersonate you so that they can get into your bank account, access your credit card, and gain access to other accounts.

You get a high level of online security when you use a VPN, like 256-bit encryption. It makes your online communications look like a bunch of nonsense. To anyone who finds it, it will appear as garbled characters and text.

No Throttling

When you have taken up a determined amount of your data available, data throttling can occur. Your ISP or internet service provider may need to slow down your service per internet usage.

If you use a VPN connection, you can avoid a data cap. That’s because your ISP cannot see how much data is being used over the VPN connection. That’s why a VPN for small businesses is such a big help for keeping operations running smoothly.

When your ISP, or a person, controls the performance of your Wi-Fi network, and they intentionally slow down your internet speed, this is called bandwidth throttling. This can happen with visiting certain sites.

With a digital VPN, mobile traffic uses an encrypted connection. This way, others cannot see the websites you visit.

If your ISP cannot track the data that is traveling to and from a device, there is no way to bandwidth throttle. They could throttle your data at a certain time of day if they need their bandwidth to free up for other users, but it would not be because of data tracking.

Gain Access to Services That Are Geo-Blocked

An IP address tells where a device is located when using the internet or streaming content. You can get another IP, or internet protocol address, when you use a VPN, so it doesn’t matter where you are. Your IP address is actually set by your VPN provider. If they block a site or service for certain countries and only cater to certain locations, VPN encryption is beneficial.

VPN Scalability

Private networks are great for businesses just starting out. When you want to expand, your private network could become a big problem. VPN servers provide access simultaneously to many employees, including those who work remotely.

Key applications can be run in a cloud environment. You can give employees Internet access through a VPN’s secure tunnel. Whether it is an application or email, employees with a VPN can gain access to another computer on the company network where you run the application that is needed.

Remote Business VPN Encryption

If you have employees who are using data plans for their smart devices, then remote business VPN encryption is the perfect mobile security solution for accessing the company network over the internet while traveling (especially when the business uses a private dedicated VPN server).

Today’s modern business world means that travel can be inevitable. While we have heavily relied upon remote solutions and teleconferencing, more so because of the pandemic, you may need to meet face-to-face.

What often can happen when you work away from the office or from home is that you may need to use a free public WIFI network. Free Wi-Fi makes you vulnerable, and it’s an easy target for hackers.

When you connect to a public Wi-Fi network and use a VPN connection, you add a layer of protection through VPN encryption. VPN for small businesses gives you added peace of mind that your data is safe; it is running on a secure connection.

Business VPN and Cost Savings

There are more benefits that you may not have realized when using VPN encryption. You can save on other operational expenses that you may not have considered.

For example, companies with multiple locations can connect between offices without renting an expensive network capacity line. This means that they can spend less on broadband connections or local leased lines using a local ISP.

There are many options out there for VPN encryption. If you run a small business, you can likely find what you need to keep your business safe from cyber-attacks with a VPN encryption that fits your needs for less than $150 per year. Considering what could happen without one, this is an extremely small investment.

Small business VPN is the best and most cost-effective mobile security solution because they cannot invest in expensive VPN hardware and software like big organizations with IT tech groups.

A Few Disadvantages of VPN

There are a few disadvantages to consider for a business VPN. Since when you use a VPN, it encrypts and reroutes the internet connection, you may experience a slower internet speed.

It’s tricky to set up VPN encryption, but that is why we advise you to find an encryption expert before you begin down this path. There are a few moving parts with VPN encrypting that make it challenging, including the technical jargon associated with it.

The benefits outweigh the disadvantages, so we strongly recommend you use a VPN, especially for the mobile part of your business.

VPN Users Statistics

Security.org conducted a study and, in the United States, they found that VPN users divide somewhat evenly across all the states. However, they found the following percentages of VPN users live in the following regions:

• 20% on the Pacific Coast
• 16% in the South Atlantic States
• 13% in the East North Central States

Some countries have either banned the use of a VPN or heavily regulated VPN encryption because it hides users’ Internet activity. If you do business globally, you’ll want to check on the laws in the places you do business before your next business trip.

In Indonesia, 55% of residents use VPN encryption. However, Indonesia has a lot of freedom.

43% of residents in India use VPN encryption. Malaysia, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates have about 38% of residents using VPN encryption.

Covid-19 Was a Turning Point

Some countries looked to VPN technology more so at the height of the pandemic. In fact, Italy had a 175% spike in VPN encryption use, followed by Spain with a 62.1% increase and Germany with a 48.4% increase.

Slovakia was the fastest growing with an increase of 300%. Other countries that are growing include Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, and South Africa.

Who Uses VPN the Most

Some people prefer VPNs for their mobile devices versus their PC. In fact, 57% of mobile device users use a VPN to access better movies, television, and games.

Statistics suggest that 52% of mobile users with VPN encryption are iOS (Apple’s operating system) users, and 37% are Android (Google operating system) users. Desktop users are significantly less common. Only 3% of MacOS users say they use a VPN, and only 6% of Windows users say the same.

Ready to Use a VPN for Your Business?

At IronTel, we help you keep your mobile business data confidential. Our VPN solution is managed on private VPN servers (based on advanced encryption standards) dedicated to our users’ VPN encrypted connections originating from IronTel Mobile users only.

Each IronTel Mobile VPN encryption key is securely shared with its remote private dedicated VPN server only. No public or 3rd party VPN servers are involved in our VPN network.

Within our VPN services, we can provide your business with a private VPN server (optional) to secure all employees’ remote connections, from home or on a business trip, with strong VPN encryption. Remote access VPN secures your business with the best-advanced encryption standard among encryption protocols.

No matter where you go, all the time, you’ll be safe and rest easier knowing your business is protected.

If you are ready to talk about how you can make your business safer with advanced mobile security solutions and VPN encryption, now is the time to get started.

Check out our selection of secure and encrypted business devices.

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