It’s official: NordVPN’s Threat Protection Pro tool can thwart the vast majority of the most common phishing attempts. After extensive independent testing involving real phishing attacks, NordVPN became the first VPN to be certified by the company AV-Comparatives for use as an anti-phishing tool.
Summary
- What does AV-Comparatives' test involve?
- What this certification means for you
- Threat Protection Pro: more than just phishing protection
Phishing is one of the most common online threats that internet users face every day. It can take the form of private messages promising miraculous cryptocurrency investments, SMS messages asking to confirm a delivery, emails announcing extraordinary winnings...
Whatever pretext is used, these social engineering techniques aim to lure victims to fraudulent websites, encouraging them to reveal sensitive information such as their credentials or financial data. While these phishing attacks are generally not very sophisticated, they make up for their lack of creativity with sheer volume.
To combat these massive attacks, NordVPN has developed Threat Protection Pro, a versatile security tool that, among other things, analyzes the authenticity of each URL and blocks dangerous links. This tool is now officially recognized by the Austrian auditing company AV-Comparatives, which ranked the feature 3rd among the best tools to combat online shopping scams, out of 35 similar programs.
This independent organization has certified NordVPN as anti-phishing software, making it the first VPN to receive this award, a testament to the reliability and effectiveness of the software for online protection.
What does AV-Comparatives’ test involve?
The test designed by AV-Comparatives evaluates the software’s ability to successfully identify phishing URLs. To this end, AV-Comparatives presents the tool with a combination of phishing links and URLs leading to legitimate sites. The test judges the tool’s performance on two criteria: the number of successfully identified phishing attempts and the number of false positives.
To receive the official Anti-Phishing certification, cybersecurity software had to detect at least 85% of the phishing links presented. The second criterion was even more stringent: just one false positive from legitimate URLs would have instantly disqualified the product.
To highlight the difficulty of the task, only 8 out of 15 products submitted for evaluation in 2024 successfully obtained AV-Comparatives’ approval for phishing protection. We are very proud of this achievement, but this is just the beginning: we plan to continue improving Threat Protection’s anti-phishing capabilities in the future.
“Fake shopping websites are a growing problem for buyers around the world. They look like legitimate e-commerce platforms and often use professional designs, fake customer reviews, and enticing discounts to trick shoppers,” says Domininkas Virbickas, Head of Threat Protection development. “We are doing everything we can to protect our users from the serious consequences caused by these sites.”
What this certification means for you
Common sense and good cybersecurity habits are your first line of defense against phishing attempts, but it only takes one mistake to put yourself at risk. Phishing links are everywhere: a single wrong click can lead you to a compromised website that could deploy malware on your device. While you must always stay vigilant, scammers only need one successful attempt.
In case of a misstep online, reliable anti-phishing tools are there to help keep you safe; the Anti-Phishing Certification from AV-Comparatives is solid proof that Threat Protection Pro is one of those allies. After activating Threat Protection Pro, an unfortunate click on a malicious link is much less likely to result in the loss of personal or financial data.
Thus, NordVPN is not only an ideal tool for strengthening your online privacy, but also a robust solution for combating various phishing and online scam attempts.