Surfshark Just Dropped a Next-Gen VPN Protocol That Could Be Faster and More Secure Than Other VPN Connections
Surfshark today launched its brand new Dausos VPN connection protocol, which the company says elevates three key elements for VPN users: speeds 30% faster than industry standard protocols, enhanced security with hybrid post-quantum encryption, and dedicated and private server-side tunnels for each individual session.
This means that Dausos should offer Surfshark users smoother connections, improved privacy, and faster performance to benefit data-intensive activities, like streaming and gaming.
VPN protocols are basically the rules that determine the encrypted connection between your device and the Internet when you use a VPN. The days when OpenVPN dominated as the leader in the VPN protocol world are long gone. It’s still a good protocol with airtight security that can be great when you need stable connections on any network or want to bypass firewalls, but it’s a chunk that wasn’t designed for the speed or security demands of today’s VPN users.
Modern times call for modern VPN protocolsand Surfshark is the latest CNET’s Top VPN Picks to create its own proprietary next-generation VPN protocol. Dausos looks set to challenge WireGuard as the protocol of choice for Surfshark users who want fast connections without compromising security.
One of the biggest innovations Dausos brings is its ability to provide a dedicated tunnel for each individual user session, which Surfshark says can optimize performance by dynamically adapting to network conditions and device capabilities for each individual connection.
Isolation of user data traffic is a key element here. “While the risk of exposure to cross-traffic in modern VPNs is very low, our unique protocol design goes the extra mile to ensure a clean, private, and secure path for each user’s data,” Karolis Kaciulis, Surfshark’s chief systems engineer, said in a statement.
Surfshark representatives told me via email that this isolation happens on the server side, and every time a user connects to a server, the server creates a new network interface specific to that user and that VPN session. The representative explained that each user has their own server-side tunnel, so no network space logic or other resources are shared when a user connects via the Dausos protocol. This differs from the traditional method, in which the server side has a single network interface that all users of a particular protocol share.
This is all very technical, but it’s almost like creating a highway specifically for your Internet connection, instead of having to share that highway with other users.
“The unique design of the protocol avoids unnecessary and redundant checks of data packets, which improves connection performance and further prevents the theoretical possibility of interference between data packets,” Kaciulis said in the press release.
Surfshark also integrates post-compromise security into its Dausos protocol, which the company says takes the concept of perfect transmission secrecy to the next level. With PFS, each time a user connects to a VPN server, a new set of ephemeral encryption keys is generated. Every few minutes, a new set of keys is regenerated so that an attacker cannot decrypt a user’s past VPN session data from a single compromised key. However, new encryption keys are typically derived from old keys, meaning that it could theoretically be possible for an attacker to derive future keys from a previously compromised key.
But Surfshark told me via email that with Dausos’ post-compromise security, new encryption keys are unique and completely independent of any other keys, making it virtually impossible to decrypt future keys from a past compromised key. Essentially, post-compromise security provides Surfshark users with an extra layer of privacy.
Dausos also integrates post-quantum encryptionwhich can help protect against potential decryption threats from quantum computers in the future. A bit like ExpressVPNSurfshark’s hybrid post-quantum approach helps protect user data simultaneously against current and future threats.
“We have introduced many steps, some never before seen in any VPN protocol, to maximize the security of our protocol,” Kaciulis said in a statement.
To validate its claims, Surfshark commissioned German security firm Cure53 to conduct an independent audit of Dausos’ security. The Cure53 source code audit took place between February and March 2026 and focused on the connected architecture and cryptography of the Dausos protocol. The audit identified eight findings under the Dausos protocol that Cure53 assessed as medium or lower severity – most of which Cure53 said Surfshark responded to immediately.
“With no critical or high severity findings in the Dausos protocol itself, the audit results reflect a stable and resilient platform,” Cure53’s audit summary states. “The Surfshark team demonstrated a significant commitment to security by fixing the majority of results immediately after the testing phase.”
The Dausos protocol is currently only available on the Surfshark platform. MacOS VPN application. However, Surfshark told me via email that the team is actively working on rolling out Dausos to other platforms “soon,” but couldn’t share a specific timeline yet.
For more information, see the VPN settings to enable optimal privacy, why VPN jurisdiction is essential for your privacy, how to speed up your VPN connection and why VPNs Can’t Make You Completely Anonymous Online.
