5 Best VPNs for Hackers & Pen-Testers in 2023

All kinds of IT organizations hire ethical hackers to find vulnerabilities in their security systems. But how do ethical hackers and pen-testers keep themselves safe from black-hat hackers? Well, every cyber-security professional should take steps to protect themselves on the Internet. If you are worried about falling victim to cyber-criminals, choose the best VPN for hackers and pen-testers for complete online privacy.

For a pen-tester, it's so obvious that a system breach or data leak can be attempted on them anytime to spy on their personal or organizational data. So, they must stay prepared to survive DDoS attacks and other malicious activities. If you belong to the cyber-sec community, you already know there's no shortage of online threats.

What you can do, however, is protect yourself with a high-end VPN and enjoy multiple benefits. These benefits include access to geo-restricted services alongside protection against malware and trackers. Of course, VPNs will also encrypt your incoming and outgoing data, which means you'll keep malicious actors away from your sensitive information.

Most people don't start using a VPN until it's too late. They don't proactively take steps towards privacy until one day, their identity is stolen, or worse, their money. That said, let's start talking about the best VPNs for hackers and pen-testers, showing you how to secure your privacy.

How to Use a VPN for Hacking & Pen-Testing

Setting up a VPN service for hacking and pen-testing is incredibly easy, especially if you pick an optimized VPN. Here’s exactly what you need to do:

1. Subscribe to a VPN that works great for hackers (our recommendation is ExpressVPN).
2. Download and install the VPN app on your device(s).
3. Launch the VPN app and when prompted, log in using your credentials.
4. Select a VPN server in your favorite location.
5. Once your VPN session initializes, your data will become encrypted. That's it!

Best VPN for Hacking & Pen-Testing

We've interviewed penetration testers to understand which VPN service successfully fulfills their requirements. All of them agreed that a good VPN has to have a strict no-log policy, high-end encryption, an effective kill switch, and DNS-leak protection to meet their hacking requirements. Apart from that, it is also a good idea to have a VPN with enough simultaneous connections and a wide server network.

Based on the mentioned factors above, here's our in-depth rundown of the 5 best VPNs for hackers and pen-testers in 2023:

1. ExpressVPN  - Our #1-Rated VPN for Hackers and Pen-Testers
2. NordVPN - Best for High-End Security & Privacy Protection
3. CyberGhost VPN - Best Option for Privacy & Entertainment
4. Private Internet Access (PIA) - Best Open-Source & Fully Transparent VPN
5. TorGuard - Best VPN for Hackers with Bare Metal Servers

1. ExpressVPN - Our #1-Rated VPN for Hackers and Pen-Testers

ExpressVPN is one of the most trusted VPN service providers. It is based in the British Virgin Islands, which is out of the 5-Eyes alliance (no mandatory data retention laws apply to this VPN), so they don't log users' activity or identity.

With ExpressVPN, you get complete coverage when you need to test a network to simulate an attack from a certain country. With its large server network, this VPN offers a huge range of options while spoofing your location. The network lock kill switch and DNS leak protection work together to ensure your traffic never leaves the tunnel, even when the connection drops.

ExpressVPN uses 256-AES encryption along with highly secure and fast protocols like- OpenVPN, Lightway, IKEv2, and L2TP/IPsec. While connecting to a server, either choose any of these protocols or let the VPN decide the suitable one depending on your network settings.

ExpressVPN's client apps incorporate a speed test feature that helps you test individual servers and find the fastest one while gaming. Along with that, it provides complete P2P and P2S support that helps you with torrenting and sharing files without affecting your system. 

If you want to learn more, here's what else to know about ExpressVPN.

2. NordVPN - Best for High-End Security & Privacy Protection

If you need a VPN stuffed with security features, NordVPN is the best choice for you. It comes with the CyberSec ad-blocker, which protects your systems from any malware, phishing attempts, malicious links, etc. This ad-blocker also prevents XSS attacks with its extra protection layer, as well as pre-identified malicious sites.

NordVPN has many servers in multiple locations connecting you to around 60 countries. Some of their servers are obfuscated so that you can easily get out of your ISP’s or Government’s watch during a black-box penetration testing. 

Alongside that, NordVPN offers a Double VPN and Onion over VPN feature to route your traffic through different protection layers before it reaches the internet. It uses AES-256-bit encryption coupled with NordLynx, OpenVPN, and IKEv2/IPsec protocols to ensure complete security for your sensitive data.

NordLynx is built to provide the users with the blazing fast speed of WireGuard incorporated with high security. If you choose to use OpenVPN, you can enjoy the benefits of AES-256-GCM encryption. With such security and privacy measures, you can unblock access to worldwide content from any region with heavy censorship, e.g., China or UAE.

Know what all platforms are supported by this VPN by reading more about NordVPN.

3. CyberGhost VPN - Best Option for Privacy & Entertainment

Are you using a VPN for the very first time? If yes, CyberGhost VPN will be the ideal choice for you. With their pre-filtered servers and pre-configured profiles, you can easily find a suitable VPN server to connect your device.

It offers servers in a lot (90+) countries, and some of these servers are specially optimized for users from the US and UK. Whenever you log in to the CyberGhost client app, you can find different sections for NoSpy servers, streaming servers, torrenting servers, and more.

Hence, you don’t have to test each server to determine which meets your requirements, as you already get the best-performing ones pre-listed. That’s why CyberGhost is easily one of the best VPNs for hackers and pen-testers who are just entering the world of VPNs.

However, it uses AES-256-bit encryption to safeguard your data no matter what network you’re connecting to. So, if you’re using your office Wi-Fi, this VPN hides your activity from the network admin and anyone else connected to the same network.

CyberGhost VPN uses 4 types of tunneling protocols- WireGuard, OpenVPN, and IKEv2. Now, the terms ‘WireGuard’ may raise concerns about your privacy, but CyberGhost has already taken care of that. It uses a daemon on top of WireGuard to stand by its service offering and strict no-log policy. 

Here's more information about CyberGhost.

4. Private Internet Access (PIA) - Best Open-Source & Fully Transparent VPN

PIA VPN comes with several features along with one of the largest server networks connecting dozens of countries. All their Next-Gen servers offer impenetrable security and blazing fast speed. So, you can easily connect with any of their servers and mask your real IP, in case you’re instructed to use a static IP while performing grey box testing.

Alongside, PIA offers split-tunneling to ensure you can access local resources (e.g., printer) while staying connected to the VPN. All its client apps come with a built-in ad-blocker named PIA-MACE to protect each supported device from malware, unnecessary ad pop-ups, etc. 

All these security measures are coupled with AES-128 and AES-256-bit encryption. This VPN is so advanced that it allows you to customize the encryption level as per your requirements. So, if you’re an advanced VPN user, PIA VPN is a good choice for you.

They use OpenVPN and an improvised WireGuard protocol to provide maximum security to your online traffic. And the network kill switch, DNS, IPv6, and WebRTC leak protection keeps your IP masked even if the connection drops. If you ever face any issue while connecting to PIA VPN, connect to the live chat support team.

Learn what else you can expect from Private Internet Access.

5. TorGuard - Best VPN for Hackers with Bare Metal Servers

TorGuard is one of the most powerful VPN services that provide you with full-fledged security and complete privacy. It has quite a large server network across tens of countries. It also provides residential IP servers that are operated by TorGuard's own bare-metal servers and not by any third party.

Hence, you get the exact same level of security that TorGuard promises to provide. It offers unlimited speed and bandwidth to help you experience uninterrupted use. The port forwarding feature helps you switch ports whenever you feel it’s required on any device.  

It uses 256-AES and Blowfish encryption along with Stunnel proxy servers to protect your data on any network. Moreover, obfuscation is available with their OpenVPN protocol to help you break through the firewalls.

Other protocols, i.e., OpenConnect, WireGuard, and  L2TP/IPSec + IKEv2, work on every device you connect to this VPN. And their strict no-log policy makes sure none of your browsing activity is logged, so you get complete anonymity over the internet.

Intrigued by this VPN? Learn more about why TorGuard is among the best VPNs for hackers and pen-testers.

Final Thoughts

Whether you’re an ethical hacker or a developer testing security vulnerabilities in applications or at the network level, these VPNs are going to offer you the maximum security and privacy you need to do your job.

If you are short of time, you can go straight for ExpressVPN, the best VPN for hackers and pen-testers in 2023. This service has received the top position for its outstanding performance in two categories; security and speed.

However, if you want to explore more options, you could visit our central guide listing the best VPN services available today.

This is where we conclude our list of the best VPNs for hackers and pen-testers. If you have any questions, let us know via the comments section below. Thanks for reading!