A new era for VPN testing? ATMSO publishes the first-ever testing standards in an "important milestone"

Leading cybersecurity company AMTSO has just unveiled its "first-ever" standards for VPN testing.

AMTSO, short for Anti-Malware Testing Standards Organization, is an NGO established in 2008 to improve the quality of anti-malware testing methods. On February 19, 2025, the experts published the VPN Performance Testing Guidelines to help enhance fair privacy and security for VPN assessments.

Regular security and privacy audits carried out by independent experts have become a common practice among the best VPN providers. Third-party audits are users' guarantee their VPN service does what it claims to be.

New VPN testing guidelines

The recent publication, developed by AMTSO's VPN working group, which includes VPN vendors and testers, is only the first in a series of VPN standard guidelines.

"This first release is an important milestone in our mission to provide testing guidance in the world of privacy and security," said John Hawes, COO of AMTSO. "By setting clear benchmarks, we enable fair comparisons and help users make informed choices when selecting a VPN provider."

AMTSO's VPN testing guidelines include key aspects that testers must check when assessing the software's performance.

These include launch on-boot and auto-connection testing to ensure VPNs activate automatically for maximum protection, kill switch tests to verify that no data leaks occur when the VPN connection drops, check whether VPNs effectively block DNS, IP, and WebRTC leaks, and split tunneling testing.

According to AMTSO's guidelines, testers should also evaluate how VPN services perform under different network conditions while measuring how well VPNs maintain access to websites.

Virtual private network (VPN) apps have become crucial tools for many people worldwide who want to regain control over their online privacy. A VPN encrypts all users' connections to avoid third-party access and spoofs their IP address to keep their online activities anonymous.

IP spoofing is also why increasingly more people are using streaming VPN services to keep up with their favorite shows while traveling.

Even more notably, VPN usage is soaring for the same reason among citizens living under a restricted internet environment as a censorship-resistant tool. As per ProtonVPN's latest data, 119 countries saw VPN usage spiking throughout 2024.

All this interest in VPN solutions makes it even more crucial to follow a standardized process when assessing these services.

AMTSO is now inviting independent testers and VPN vendors to adopt these guidelines. "Moving forward, the AMTSO VPN Working Group will expand its focus to include malware testing within VPN environments and additional security feature evaluations."