The digital work trend has employees and devices scattered across locations and networks. With split tunneling, you can fine-tune policies to route sensitive or regulated data through VPN channels while bypassing those apps that don’t need it.
With an app-based split tunneling setup, your bank, work, and medical traffic is encrypted while your TikTok scrolling stays unencrypted. This granular traffic management balances privacy, functionality, and speed.
How it works
While traditional VPNs work by encrypting all of your online activities, understanding the basics and definition of VPN split tunneling allows you to choose which apps, websites, and services to run through your VPN connection and which to keep on the open internet. This gives you a higher level of security without sacrificing transfer speeds for the more mundane activities.
This functionality can be helpful for both home and business users. For example, many people travel for work and need to access a company network to do their job but want to enjoy the flexibility of a VPN while away from the office to watch region-restricted content or use popular torrent clients.
With split tunneling, you can configure your VPN to automatically encrypt all your data for work-related sites and services while still using the open internet for less sensitive activities like social media browsing, streaming TV, or shopping. This can be especially helpful if you have to work while abroad or on public Wi-Fi networks that don’t offer strong encryption.
To enable split tunneling, you must go into your VPN’s settings or options menu and look for the option to manage your VPN on a per-app or per-URL basis. Once enabled, you can decide which apps should be encrypted and which should be routed straight through the open internet.
Benefits
VPNs encrypt everything that leaves or enters the tunnel as a security measure. However, hackers can still take advantage of holes in the system by bypassing security measures or exploiting weaknesses in a VPN’s protocols. Using split tunneling, the risk of these types of threats is minimized by only routing traffic that requires encryption through the VPN.
In addition to minimizing risks, VPN split tunneling can reduce bandwidth consumption and improve connection speeds. By only encrypting the data that needs to be encrypted, the rest of your internet connection can connect directly to websites and apps. This is important for users relying on their VPN for online banking, email exchanges, and sensitive files.
Lastly, a split tunneling feature is useful for users who want to use specific apps and services that require VPN protection without having the VPN on all the time. For example, suppose you have an app or website that needs to be used in a country with restricted access or for which a VPN may interfere with performance or cause problems.
This feature can enable work-from-anywhere policies for corporate users while maintaining security and enabling productivity for mobile workforces. IT administrators can create policies that fine-tune which apps will be sent through the VPN and which can connect directly while allowing employees to access a full range of company services from home or when traveling.
Setup
Traditionally, VPNs create an encrypted tunnel between your device and a remote server. Any data sent or received over this connection is encrypted, so hackers and other unauthorized parties can’t view it.
However, this can also slow down internet speeds as data needs to pass through the VPN server before it can be accessed. You can route specific apps and URLs through the VPN using split tunneling while routing everything else directly to optimize your internet speed.
Most VPN services offer various options for setting up and managing your split-tunneling settings, allowing you to choose the apps or sites that will connect via the VPN and those that will bypass it. The easiest way to set this up is by going into your VPN’s settings or options menu and selecting the option to manage VPN connections on a per-app or per-URL basis.
This is useful for users who want to prioritize security over speed in some cases, like when doing online banking or sending sensitive files through email. It can also be helpful for people who live in countries where there is strict censorship, as they can use the VPN to access sites and services that their ISPs or government agencies would otherwise block.
Security
Using split tunneling, you can decide which apps and URLs should be routed through your VPN and which to bypass. This is very useful for businesses where employees travel between work locations or have remote access and need to use certain applications but still require the protection of sensitive data.
A basic VPN routes all your internet traffic through a secure tunnel, making it difficult for hackers and other online snoopers to see what you’re doing online. However, this can slow down your network speeds.
VPN Split Tunneling enables you to keep your VPN active and encrypt all your internet traffic when needed while keeping your speed up for the more mundane online tasks that don’t require as much privacy protection. This granularity in your online security can be a game-changer for many users.
In addition to delivering speed and performance, VPN Split Tunneling can help organizations with limited WAN bandwidth avoid saturating their VPN links by routing some of the traffic to the public internet. This can help support broader remote access for their workforce while reducing infrastructure costs. As the future of work trends toward dispersed operations, VPN Split Tunneling offers a great way to maximize security and productivity for mobile workers.
