While cybersecurity breaches and attacks remain a common threat to UK businesses throughout 2023, two out of three companies leave themselves vulnerable to attackers.
That's the grim picture that comes from the country's annual Cyber Security Breaches Survey. In a world where organizations remain an easy target for criminals, only 32% of businesses require staff to use one of the best VPN services to connect remotely.
It's true that VPN adoption is considerably higher among medium and large organizations (90%). However, VPNs are still among the least common security requirements for smaller businesses and charities—which stand for 86% of respondents. Let's look in more detail at why you should regularly use a business VPN and what's the best options out there are.
The advantages of using a business VPN
A VPN, short for virtual private network, is security software that spoofs your real IP address by rerouting your connection to one of the provider's international servers. It also uses encryption, which is the process of scrambling data into an unreadable form, to shield internet connections against third-party snooping.
You may well have used a VPN in your personal life at some point—whether that was for keeping up with new Doctor Who episodes while traveling outside the UK, or protecting your privacy when torrenting on unsecured websites.
Business VPNs and their consumer counterpart perform very similar functions. However, the reasons for using the product are intrinsically different. For instance, IP address spoofing is more important for individuals looking to access blocked websites and apps rather than a remote worker connecting to their company's firewall.
A secure business VPN comes as an easy security option for business. It takes just one click to turn the software on and create a secure route to your company networks and systems.
For remote workers, a VPN creates a secure connection between on-premises servers and remote devices. That's especially important as this type of staff might tend to work away from home, possibly using insecure public Wi-Fi that is more vulnerable to hackers' attacks.
It's worth mentioning, though, that VPNs aren't invincible. They cannot stop all forms of online monitoring, for example. Antivirus services are also the best way to protect your work computer from viruses and malware. Lastly, not all VPNs are equally trustworthy. Hence, you must find a provider you can trust with your company's data.
The top business VPNs available
As mentioned, a business VPN is a great and easy-to-use tool to protect your organization. However, VPNs aren't made equal.
Luckily for you, TechRadar experts have spent over 3,000 hours testing over 100 providers—including a wide range of business services. They regularly take these services apart to evaluate the efficacy of all their features—from the most important like encryption protocols, security levels, and speed results to their interface, ease of setup, number of devices they support, and pricing plans, among other things.
Below are our top three favorite VPNs for business on the market right now:
