VPN encryption: your gateway to a secure internet

AES (Advanced Encryption Standard) is among the most sophisticated encryption protocols trusted by cybersecurity specialists and governments worldwide.

AES is a block cipher, meaning it splits data into smaller blocks and uses different cryptographic keys for each block. The keys can be of various lengths — 128, 192, or 256 bits — and the longer the encryption key, the harder it is to crack.

AES-256 encryption has become the standard in the cybersecurity world and is also used by Surfshark. Even with the fastest supercomputers available today, it would take insurmountable amounts of time to try all the possible combinations (2^256) to crack it through a brute-force attack.

Step 1: Asymmetric cryptography handshake

The encryption process begins with a secure handshake between your device and the VPN server. This handshake uses asymmetric cryptography — which involves a public and a private key — to verify the connection and securely exchange information.

Step 2: Symmetric key exchange

During the handshake, a unique symmetric encryption key is securely generated and shared. This key is then used to encrypt and decrypt your data for the rest of the session. A fresh key is created regularly to keep your connection secure and prevent exposure, even if a past session was compromised.

Step 3: Data encryption

With the symmetric key in place, all your internet traffic is encrypted using advanced encryption algorithms, such as AEGIS-256X2, AES-256, or ChaCha20 — ensuring your data stays private and protected as it travels between you and the VPN server.

Step 4: Integrity check

Finally, integrity algorithms verify that your data hasn’t been tampered with or altered during transmission.