VPNs have long been heralded as a tool to keep your internet activity safe from snoopers and hackers, but as internet activity takes a monumental shift towards mobile – do you need to consider a VPN for your iPhone?
Whenever you pick up your iPhone to search the web, scroll on Instagram or access your email there is an opportunity for your data and identity to be compromised. Granted, the likelihood of this happening is still slim but cybersecurity is an industry experiencing massive growth for a reason.
Modern networks including 4G and 5G have enough encryption to keep you safe from most malicious actors, but for any sensitive activity or if you’re using public WiFi networks you may want to consider VPN for iPhones.
We’ve previously covered Cactus VPN which has great support for Windows, Mac, iPhone, Android and iPads but the provider you decide to go with should match your needs.
If you use your iPhone to play online games extensively you’ll want to use a VPN provider with servers close to your geographic location. This is important to reduce the latency and delay to ensure the game is responsive, snappy and as close as possible to real-time.
If you’re using a WiFi network that isn’t your own, for example the one at school or university, you may come across browsing restrictions and blocked websites.
Using a VPN will allow you to dodge firewalls and bypass these restrictions and the data is proxied to your device through the VPN. As far as the network administrator is concerned, you are not visiting the restricted content but the content of the VPN server. To the untrained eye, this will appear as just any other website.
Businesses can leverage VPNs to protect the activity of employees and sensitive data on company-provided iPhones. Similar to the cases above, a VPN installed on a company phone allows for organisations to take a step further with cybersecurity policies.
When using self-hosted VPNs, iPhones can get access to on-premises resources too such as files and applications stored at the datacentre or on the network. Similarly, company-provided iPhones configured with a VPN may also allow employers to snoop on employee activity.
