Surfshark at the moment launched its brand-new Dausos VPN connection protocol, which the corporate says elevates three key components for VPN customers: 30% sooner speeds than industry-standard protocols, enhanced safety with a hybrid post-quantum encryption and devoted, non-public server-side tunnels for every particular person session.
Which means Dausos ought to give Surfshark customers smoother connections, improved privateness and sooner efficiency to profit data-heavy actions, like streaming and gaming.
VPN protocols are basically the principles that decide the encrypted connection between your system and the web whereas on a VPN. Lengthy gone are the times when OpenVPN dominated because the hotshot of the VPN protocol world. It is nonetheless a tremendous protocol with hermetic safety that may be nice if you want secure connections on any community or wish to bypass firewalls, nevertheless it’s a lumbering hulk that wasn’t constructed for the velocity or safety necessities of at the moment’s VPN customers.
Trendy occasions name for contemporary VPN protocols, and Surfshark is the most recent of CNET’s prime VPN picks to spin up its personal proprietary next-generation VPN protocol. Dausos sounds poised to problem WireGuard because the protocol of selection for Surfshark customers who need speedy connections with out compromising safety.
One of many greatest improvements that Dausos brings to the desk is its means to ship a devoted tunnel for every particular person person session, which Surfshark says can optimize efficiency by dynamically adapting to community situations and system capabilities for every particular person connection.
Isolating person’s knowledge visitors is a key factor right here. “Whereas the danger of cross-traffic publicity in trendy VPNs could be very low, our distinctive protocol design goes the additional mile to make sure a clear, non-public, and safe path for every person’s knowledge,” Surfshark’s lead programs engineer Karolis Kaciulis mentioned in a press release.
Surfshark representatives advised me through e mail that this isolation occurs on the server aspect, and each time a person connects to a server, the server creates a brand new community interface particular to that person and VPN session. The consultant defined that every person will get their very own server-side tunnel, so no community area logic or different sources are shared when a person connects through the Dausos protocol. This differs from the standard methodology, the place the server aspect has a single community interface that every one customers of a selected protocol share.
That is all very technical, nevertheless it’s virtually like making a freeway particularly on your web connection, as an alternative of getting to share that freeway with different customers.
“The protocol’s distinctive design avoids pointless and redundant checking of knowledge packets, which boosts connection efficiency and even additional prevents the theoretical risk of knowledge packets interfering with one another,” Kaciulis mentioned within the press launch.
Surfshark additionally incorporates post-compromise safety with its Dausos protocol, which the corporate says takes the idea of excellent ahead secrecy to the subsequent degree. With PFS, each time a person connects to a VPN server, a recent set of ephemeral encryption keys are generated. Each couple of minutes, a brand new set of keys is regenerated in order that an attacker would not have the ability to decrypt a person’s previous VPN session knowledge from a single key compromise. Nevertheless, the brand new encryption keys are usually derived from the previous keys, which signifies that it may theoretically be doable for an attacker to derive future keys from a previous compromised key.
However Surfshark advised me through e mail that with Dausos’ post-compromise safety, the brand new encryption keys are distinctive and completely unrelated to some other key, which makes it just about not possible to decrypt future keys from a previous key compromise. Basically, post-compromise safety offers Surfshark customers an added layer of privateness.
Dausos additionally incorporates post-quantum encryption, which can assist shield towards potential decryption threats from quantum computer systems sooner or later. Very like ExpressVPN, Surfshark’s hybrid post-quantum method helps shield person knowledge concurrently from at the moment’s threats in addition to future threats.
“We launched quite a few steps, a few of them by no means seen in any VPN protocol earlier than, to maximise the safety of our protocol,” Kaciulis mentioned in a press release.
To assist validate its claims, Surfshark commissioned German safety agency Cure53 to run an impartial audit of Dausos’ safety. Cure53’s supply code audit came about between February and March 2026 and targeted on the linked structure and cryptography of the Dausos protocol. The audit flagged eight findings throughout the Dausos protocol’s scope that Cure53 rated a medium severity or decrease — most of which Cure53 says Surfshark instantly addressed.
“With no findings rated at Essential or Excessive severity throughout the precise Dausos protocol itself, the audit outcomes mirror a secure and resilient platform,” Cure53’s audit abstract states. “The Surfshark crew demonstrated a major dedication to safety by remediating nearly all of the findings instantly following the testing section.”
The Dausos protocol is at present solely obtainable on Surfshark’s MacOS VPN app. Nevertheless, Surfshark advised me through e mail that the crew is actively working towards rolling out Dausos on different platforms “quickly,” however can not but share a selected timeline.
For extra info, take a look at the VPN settings to allow for optimum privateness, why VPN jurisdiction is important on your privateness, learn how to velocity up your VPN connection and why VPNs cannot make you fully nameless on-line.
