Remote work moved the office onto other people's networks: the café round the corner, the co-working space, the hotel on a business trip, the airport lounge. Your laptop and phone carry work email, client files and company logins across all of them. Here is where a VPN fits in.
What changes when you work remotely
At the office, the company controls the network. At home, you do. Everywhere else, someone you have never met runs the network and can, at minimum, see which services your devices connect to.
Most business tools already use HTTPS, so contents are encrypted. But the pattern of what you connect to, and when, is still visible on the local network. On a malicious or misconfigured network, an attacker can also try to intercept or redirect traffic.
What a VPN does for remote workers
Encrypts everything on untrusted networks. All traffic from your laptop or phone travels through an encrypted tunnel to the VPN server, so the café's Wi-Fi sees only a connection to a VPN.
Covers every app, not just the browser. Email clients, chat apps, file sync and background updates all go through the tunnel.
Keeps working on restrictive networks. Hotels, conference venues and some client offices block VPNs or particular apps. A stealth protocol, which makes the tunnel look like ordinary HTTPS, keeps you connected.
Gives a consistent location. Some services challenge logins from unfamiliar countries. Connecting through a server in your home country can avoid lockouts while travelling.
What a VPN does not replace
A consumer or team VPN is not a replacement for:
- Your company's corporate VPN, if it requires one to reach internal systems. That connects you into the company network; a privacy VPN protects you on the way out to the internet.
- Multi-factor authentication on work accounts.
- Device security: screen lock, disk encryption, updates.
- Common sense about phishing. No VPN stops you typing a password into a fake login page.
A sensible remote-work setup
- Turn the VPN on whenever you are not on a network you control. Better still, set it to connect automatically on untrusted Wi-Fi.
- Enable a kill switch so traffic stops if the tunnel drops, rather than leaking onto the café network.
- Pick a nearby server for everyday work to keep video calls smooth.
- Run a leak test once after setup to confirm DNS and WebRTC are not leaking.
- Keep MFA on every work account.
- Use your phone's hotspot instead of hotel Wi-Fi for anything sensitive, with the VPN on.
Video calls over a VPN
Calls work fine over a VPN on a nearby server. If quality drops:
- switch to a closer server;
- check whether the network itself is slow by testing with the VPN off;
- close large uploads or sync jobs running in the background.
For teams
If you manage a team, a shared plan is simpler than everyone expensing their own VPN. Look for central seat management, a single invoice, and the option of a dedicated IP address if your tools whitelist office IPs.
Korp for Teams offers seat management, a single company invoice and an optional dedicated IP. Details are on the Korp for Teams page.
Checklist
- VPN set to auto-connect on untrusted networks
- Kill switch on
- Leak test passed
- MFA on work accounts
- Disk encryption and screen lock on the laptop
- Phone hotspot for sensitive work in hotels
Korp VPN for remote work
Korp VPN runs on Windows, iPhone and Android with unlimited data, a strict no-logs policy on RAM-only servers and a stealth protocol for hotel and conference networks that block VPNs. Individual plans are $4.99 for three months or $17.99 a year; teams can use Korp for Teams.