The world is quickly changing right now due to many things – a worldwide pandemic being one of them – and people have had to adapt. That means a lot more people are working from home, and for many, this is how things will stay for the foreseeable future.
Working from home, whether as a remote employee, consultant, or freelancer, means applying cybersecurity practices and tools. VPNs are often a part of this toolset and are used to secure a device’s connection to a business’s internal network. Many companies require that their employees use a VPN while working outside the office.
But what about personal use or when other household members also want to use the internetetsecurite? Is it possible to use two different VPN services on the same home network, at the same time?
Here’s the short answer: Yes, it absolutely can be done. Read on to find out why and how it works.
Why are Companies Using VPNs?
Companies are busy making the switch to remote working at an unprecedented scale. Many are closing their offices permanently in favor of either remote employees or freelancers. Freelancing, in general, has also taken off in the last few years.
All this means that there are millions of people working from home right now, and with that comes some new challenges. Cybersecurity, for one, is a big concern when people are accessing companies’ internal networks remotely. This is why organizations have been using VPNs for years to ensure that employees’ network traffic is sent through a secure tunnel.
The Differences Between Corporate VPNs and Personal VPNs
While some companies use commercial VPN services with business options, most use business VPNs, which are different. Commercial VPNs and business VPNs differ in three significant ways:
Security: The point of using a VPN at home is to secure personal and household devices from spying and malicious attacks. Business VPNs, however, only protect data that is transferred between a device and the company’s internal network. Any other online actions are still fair game.
Server connection: Commercial VPNs generally have lots of servers situated in various countries across the globe. People can connect to any of them whenever they like and impact your business. But a business VPN only connects directly to company servers or systems. It only provides employees with secure access to business files and assets.
Privacy: While commercial VPNs aren’t supposed to log their users’ online activities, business VPNs do. Everything a person does while connected to the business VPN is usually logged and tracked by their employer’s IT department.
How to Use Two Separate VPNs for Business and Personal Purposes
Usually, it’s not possible to connect to two VPNs at the same time as connection problems will certainly crop up. But there’s always an exception – and in this case, it’s a FlashRouter. A FlashRouter is a wireless router that comes pre-installed with DD-WRT firmware, which supports VPN technology.
Any devices connected to the business VPN can then be excluded using it along with a privacy app from a supplier like FlashRouters. The supplier’s app has an option called “routing by device,” which lets users bypass specific devices from the best VPN.
This means the VPN will protect all the other devices on the network except those connected to the business VPN. This can then be changed again at any time using the app.
Keep in mind that this method still requires a subscription to a commercial VPN service. However, the bonus is that it doesn’t limit people to a certain number of VPN-connected devices as some services normally limit their users.
Summary
These days, there’s no such thing as being too careful. While working from home comes with many challenges, security shouldn’t be one of them. And it definitely shouldn’t be necessary to sacrifice personal security to be able to access work documents. With this workaround, it’s possible to use both a business VPN and a personal one simultaneously.