Page 59 - Cyber Defense Magazine for August 2020

Running in-kernel
Can you achieve the highest possible performance just by running in-kernel? Not really - actually, IPSec
is way faster on all platforms. IPSec runs much faster because it runs in the kernel too, but is significantly
more optimised for Intel CPUs. The point is, running within the kernel offers a major speed increase but
WireGuard is not the only protocol to run in such a way. PPTP/L2TP do too. OpenVPN developers plan
to release a kernel module for Linux soon. SoftEther (which runs completely in the userspace)
outperforms WireGuard when throughput is the primary concern.

WireGuard definitely warrants all of the interest it has garnered - it remains to be seen whether it becomes
a revolution for the VPN industry. As things stand it certainly offers faster speeds and better reliability
compared to some of the existing VPN protocols - and there is the added promise of new and improved
encryption standards. It is surely only a matter of time before we see more and more VPN services
incorporating WireGuard into their structure.

About the Author

Tomislav Čohar is the co-founder of hide.me VPN.

https://hide.me/en/

Cyber Defense eMagazine – August 2020 Edition 59
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