What is a VPN

A VPN (Virtual Private Network) is simple software created to protect your privacy online and make life more difficult for hackers by concealing your traffic and location in anonymity. At the same time you can also use it for many other purposes, such as fast and secure browsing and more.

A VPN can help protect you in a few key ways:

• They encrypt all the data you send over the Internet.
• They also protect your privacy, your IP address will not be visible
• Some VPNs block malicious websites, ads, and trackers.

VPNs direct all your web traffic through one of their servers, where it is encrypted. For example, you might be in Italy and connect to an American server. The VPN sends your traffic from Italy to the United States, fully encrypted. Because it is encrypted, your ISP will no longer be able to see your online activity, where you are, or track you.

From there, the VPN server forwards your traffic to the desired destination. As the source of your web traffic, the site or app will detect the VPN server instead of your device. This also means that it will detect the IP address of the VPN server instead of your actual one. The best VPNs have thousands of servers and regularly update their IP addresses so that websites do not have enough time to blacklist them all. Therefore, with such services you can maintain complete privacy and go unnoticed online. You can freely use a VPN in most countries, including Switzerland, with some exceptions.

Protection at the IT level is important, especially for medical practices that have sensitive data. We discuss it here.