The Enduring Attack Surface of VPNs

Paper Traces Pandemic-Era Spike in Attacks Greg Sirico • January 5, 2026

One way to look at the novel coronavirus pandemic: A societal experiment in how an oft-overlooked yet essential element of secure networking would stand up to an exploding user base. Unsurprisingly, the rapid uptake of virtual private networks by companies suddenly managing a remote workforce came with significant security costs.

See Also: A Legal Services Firm Needed a Modern Remote Work Strategy. Choosing Venn over a Virtual Desktop Changed Everything.

Researchers from the Blekinge Institute of Technology in Sweden in a 2025 paper counted a 238% surge in VPN targeted attacks between 2020 and 2022, peak years of coronavirus lockdowns. The study is a meta-analysis of 81 reports from sources including Google and BrightTALK.

The pandemic resulted in the remote workforce increasing by a third and a rush by organizations to embrace VPNs, the ...