Microsoft Develop VPN With Cloudflare Following Major DDoS Prevention
Bolstering the capabilities of their Edge browser, Microsoft have developed their own VPN-like feature in conjunction with content delivery network and DDoS mitigation company Cloudflare.
The new feature, called Microsoft Edge Secure Network is yet to be fully released and is currently only in preview mode. On full release, users of the Edge browser will get 1GB a month of free data once signed in.
Cloudflare have proven numerous times that they are titans in the field of privacy and online security. Only earlier this month, Cloudflare’s systems “automatically detected and mitigated” one of the largest HTTPS DDoS attacks on record, at 15.3 million rps (request per second). The attack targeted a Cloudflare customer who was using a crypto launchpad. Making the attack unprecedented was that it came from data centers rather than residential ISPs.
Microsoft have stressed that “Cloudflare is committed to privacy and only collects a limited amount of diagnostic and support data activating as Microsoft’s data subprocessor in order to provide the services”. Data is deleted 25 hours after collection.
The Edge Secure Network protects users by encrypting their internet connection. Data is passed through an encrypted tunnel, creating a secure connection. It also prevents data collection from ISPs, and thus stops profiling and ad targeting.
Currently, there is nothing to say if the new service will allow you to choose a specific VPN server, and thus allow users to get around geo-locking. This feature is unlikely though, as Microsoft have stated that the new service “lets you browse with a virtual IP address that masks your IP and replaces your geolocation with a similar regional address”.