Link: https[://]mullvad[.]net/en/blog/mullvad-review-of-2024
We are counting down the days until 2025 and are excited about the things that will happen next year.
Let us take a look at the special year of 2024. Here is what we remember most fondly:
Self-hosting our Support Email
Early in February 2024 we announced (https[://]mullvad[.]net/blog/we-now-self-host-our-support-email) the overhaul of our Support Team email inbox, by moving it to our self-hosted hardware. We explained how it had been audited, and that we had opted to run the servers completely in RAM.
Our Support team can be reached via support@mullvadvpn[.]net
Introduced DAITA
Constant packet size, random background traffic and data pattern distortion, with a heavy increase in bandwidth utilization were what we unveiled during May with DAITA (https[://]mullvad[.]net/blog/introducing-defense-against-ai-guided-traffic-analysis-daita). The technology is available on all our apps across all our platforms, offering users the optional ability to mix in fake data within their traffic to further mask their browsing and usage.
A more detailed look at how DAITA works, with an accompanying video and diagrams was released late-October (https[://]mullvad[.]net/blog/daita-defense-against-ai-guided-traffic-analysis). DAITA increases bandwidth usage greatly, and can have an impact on battery and network performance. Since announcing the feature we have enabled it on more than twenty VPN servers, both rented and owned, with plans to expand in 2025.
Adding ShadowSocks, multihop and Encrypted DNS proxy access method
An internal goal of 2024 was to bring feature parity across platforms and privacy features to the forefront of our apps. We achieved this by adding Multihop to all platforms, offering a new method by which to connect to our backend API in order for the app to communicate with login servers with the Encrypted DNS Proxy and adding ShadowSocks for WireGuard (https[://]mullvad[.]net/blog/introducing-shadowsocks-obfuscation-for-wireguard) to enhance obfuscation for customers that truly need it.
Security audits for VPN servers and VPN apps completed
We contacted Cure53 to perform the fourth audit towards both OpenVPN and WireGuard server configrations in June. They expressed that their “..overall verdict on the current security posture of the assessed items within the scope is very positive.” with the report available here.
Just recently in December we wrote about our third security audit of the Mullvad VPN app by X41 D-Sec was performed, a thorough look into our thoughts on the audit, and their report can be found here (https[://]mullvad[.]net/blog/the-report-for-the-2024-security-audit-of-the-app-is-now-available). The app was noted as having a high level of security, some non-critical issues were found, and have been fixed to the extent possible.
Traditional outdoor advertising
In October we highlighted our outdoor campaigns spread across large billboards, sides of buildings across multiple cities in the USA (https[://]mullvad[.]net/blog/advertising-that-targets-everyone) aiming to raise awareness about mass surveillance, showing its negative impacts. Just like these traditional ads, we have no method to track how well these campaigns have worked directly. We just have to have faith that they have had a positive educational impact.
With that, thank you for this year. Our fight against mass surveillance and censorship will continue.
Mullvad VPN
