Surfshark Passes First Independent No-Logs Audit

Another virtual private network provider has just taken an important step to increase its transparency with customers. Surfshark — CNET’s Editors’ Choice for Best VPN and one of our best VPN choices — passed an independent, no-logs audit conducted by auditing firm Deloitte, the VPN company said in a blog post on Wednesday.

“The positive outcome of Deloitte’s no-logs assurance report provides factual evidence to our users and future customers that Surfshark adheres to the highest privacy and quality standards,” wrote Justas Pukys, owner of Surfshark’s VPN product. “We will continue to perform various audits and tests to obtain independent verification of our security and privacy measures.”

The audit examined the configuration and management of Surfshark’s IT systems and supporting IT operations and was conducted between November 21 and December 2, 2022, according to a summary of Deloitte’s audit report (PDF). As part of the audit, Deloitte inspected the design and configuration of Surfshark’s standard VPN servers, static IP VPN servers, multihop servers and multiport servers.

“Based on the procedures performed and the evidence obtained, in our opinion, the configuration of the computer systems and the management of the supporting computer operations are properly prepared, in all material respects, in accordance with [Surfshark’s no-logs policy] “, said Deloitte.

Validation by Deloitte is important because an independent audit is one of the only ways to confirm that a VPN provider’s no-logging claims are legitimate. Although an independent audit from a firm like Deloitte can only confirm its findings for the scope and duration of its audit, it can provide customers with some confidence that the VPN they are using is genuine in what it does. promise.

“[The] The no-logs policy is one of the most important features of our services,” Surfshark states in its terms of service. “This means that your activities are in no way recorded, stored or transferred to third parties when you connect to our services. We do not collect any information about what you do online (your visited IP addresses, browsing history, session information, bandwidth used, timestamp of connection, network traffic or any other similar data).

Surfshark’s announcement comes two weeks after its sister companyNordVPN announcement its own independent audit without logs, also completed by Deloitte. Surfshark had its browser extensions independently audited in 2018 and its server infrastructure in 2021, but Deloitte’s audit is Surfshark’s first independent no-logs audit.

To learn more about VPNs, check out Surfshark’s new Dynamic MultiHop feature and how to increase your vpn speeds.