Virtual private networks (VPN), guarantee anonymity and security , as well as allow you to slip between the meshes of a web block by some state thanks to the possibility of hiding your position . It is therefore obvious that in countries where there is greater censorship, users use this tool more in order to access content that they would otherwise not be able to see.
As we all know, in the aftermath of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russia imposed more and more restrictions on foreign media and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. This has led to an incredible increase in the use of VPNs , which resulted in a increase of 668% between February 27 and March 3.
It is no better in Ukraine , where the search volume of VPNs has increased by approximately 600% in the same period, between February 27 and March 2, compared to the previous 30 days.
According to Top 10 VPN , which publishes this data, the number is indicative of Russian cyber attacks on the country's online infrastructure. According to the BBC , cyber attacks target Ukrainian government websites , but like internet outages in the country caused by the destruction of the physical infrastructure by Russian forces, cannot be solved simply by using VPNs.
And elsewhere it's even worse . On January 5 in Kazakhstan for example, the government cut off internet connections following protests over gas prices, causing a increase in VPN searches by 3,400%, while in some Asian countries such as China it is practically impossible to use VPNs as all web traffic in the country passes through a single government-controlled entry point .
