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Surfshark Today Dausos released the brand new VPN The connection protocol, which the company says leverages three key elements for VPN users: 30% faster speeds than industry standard protocols, enhanced security through post-quantum hybrid encryption, and dedicated server-side private tunnels for each individual session.
This means Dausos should give Surfshark users smoother connections, improved privacy, and faster performance to take advantage of data-intensive activities, like streaming and gaming.
VPN protocols are basically the rules that define the encrypted connection between your device and the internet while using a VPN. Long gone are the days when OpenVPN ruled the VPN protocol world. It’s still a good protocol with tight security and can be great when you need stable connections on any network or want to bypass firewalls, but it’s a clunky architecture that wasn’t designed to meet the speed or security demands of today’s VPN users.
The modern era calls for modernity VPN protocolsSurfshark is the latest CNET’s top VPN picks to spin off its 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 introduced by Dausos is its ability to provide a dedicated tunnel for each individual user session, which Surfshark says can improve performance by dynamically adapting to the network conditions and device capabilities of each individual connection.
Isolating user traffic is a key element here. “Although the risk of being exposed 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 to each user’s data,” Karolis Kasioulis, senior systems engineer at Surfshark, 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 the server, the server creates a new network interface specific to that user and a VPN session. The representative explained that each user gets their own server-side tunnel, so network space logic or other resources are not shared when a user connects via the Dausos protocol. This differs from the traditional method, where the server side has a single network interface that is shared by all users of a given protocol.
This is all very technical, but it’s almost like creating a dedicated highway for your Internet connection, rather than having to share that highway with other users.
“The unique design of the protocol avoids unnecessary and repetitive verification of data packets, enhancing communication performance and preventing the theoretical possibility of data packets interfering with each other,” Cassioulis said in the press release.
Surfshark is also integrating post-hack security with its Dausos protocol, which the company says takes the concept Complete forward secrecy To the next level. With PFS, every time a user connects to a VPN server, a new set of temporary encryption keys is generated. Every few minutes, a new set of keys is regenerated so that an attacker cannot decrypt the user’s previous VPN session data by cracking a single key. However, new encryption keys are generally derived from old keys, which means it is theoretically possible for an attacker to extract future keys from a previous, compromised key.
But Surfshark told me via email that with Dausos secure after the hack, the new encryption keys are unique and completely unlinked to any other key, making it nearly impossible to decrypt future keys from a previous key hack. Essentially, post-hack security provides Surfshark users with an extra layer of privacy.
Also includes Dausos Post-quantum cryptographywhich could help protect against potential decryption threats from quantum computers in the future. Like a lot ExpressVPNSurfshark’s hybrid post-quantum approach helps simultaneously protect user data from today’s threats as well as those of tomorrow.
“We have introduced several steps, some of which have never been seen in any VPN protocol before, to maximize the security of our protocol,” Cassiolis said in a statement.
To help validate its claims, Surfshark commissioned German security firm Cure53 to conduct an independent audit of Dausos’ security. The Cure53 source code audit was conducted between February and March 2026 and focused on the connected architecture and cryptography of the Dausos protocol. The review flagged eight findings within the scope of the Dausos Protocol, which Cure53 rated as moderate or lower severity — most of which Cure53 says Surfshark addressed immediately.
“With no findings classified as critical or high-risk within the actual Dausos protocol itself, the audit findings reflect a stable and resilient platform,” the Cure53 audit summary states. “The Surfshark team demonstrated a great commitment to security by processing the majority of results immediately after the testing phase.”
Dausos Protocol is currently only available on Surfshark Mac VPN program. However, Surfshark told me via email that the team is actively working on rolling out Dausos to other platforms “soon,” but can’t share a specific timeline yet.
For more information, see VPN settings to enable optimal privacy, Why VPN jurisdiction is crucial to your privacy, How to speed up your VPN connection And why VPNs cannot make you completely anonymous online.