- ExpressVPN has finally implemented the support for the Guélectric VPN Wire Protocol
- Resistance to Wireguard by ExpressVPN has led to the development of its Lightway protocol
- Wire Guad Guélect
After more than five years of refusal to adopt the protocol, going so far as to develop its own alternative, ExpressVPN finally adopted Wireguard – and he did it quantum -secret.
In a decision that will have an impact on the entire VPN industry, which PK Press Club examiners have evaluated as one of the best VPN suppliers on the market have designed an implementation to the protocol test, combining Wire Guélectricity with the encryption algorithm of next generation ML-KEM.
That said, ExpressVPN intends to keep its Lightway owner protocol – which already integrates ML -KEM – as default protocol. But in terms of the post-health future of online privacy, its adoption of Wireguard is extremely significant.
What is the Wireguard protocol?
Several different protocols – Configurations of rules which manage a VPN connection – are currently used. Many suppliers are based on Wireguard, alongside older solutions like IKEV2 / IPSEC, OpenVPN (which is regularly revised), and proprietary solutions like Nordwhisper and Lightway from NordVPN.
All current protocols have various strengths and weaknesses, as well as potential vulnerabilities that have not yet been discovered. Wireguard, which initially evaluated and rejected ExpressVPN in 2019, is used by many virtual private network services (VPN), and has been presented as a potential solution for the Internet of Things and the encryption of intelligent domestic devices.
ML-KEM, on the other hand, is a standard of encryption resistant to quantum published by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) at the end of 2024, and largely well received by the Cryptography Community as a higher response to post-Vivertum encryption (PQE).
By finally including Wireguard in its VPN customer software and integrating ML-KEM, ExpressVPN offered a solution to the entire VPN industry. This means that any VPN supplier, large or small, provided that it manages its own servers, can introduce PQE protections.
As ExpressVPN observed it in a blog article: “Post-quantum protections are practically nonexistent in production deployments … We have resolved these shortcomings and published the results. Now, it’s on the rest of the industry to make up for it. ”
From August 6, 2025, Post-Quantum Wireguard is available on iOS, Android and Windows ExpressVPN applications. The management of macOS will also follow soon.
Is quantum computing really a risk for VPNs?
Quantum computers have long been recognized as representing a significant risk for the most strict current encryption standards. The underlying mathematics of encryption algorithms which could take millennia to be resolved by today’s machines can be broken relatively quickly by quantum computers.
This clearly presents a risk for all current forms of encryption, especially VPNs. By creating an encrypted route via the Internet via a VPN server using a VPN application, users expect their data to remain deprived and out of observation by ISPs, governments and bad players.
Quantum IT disturbs this entirely.
As early as 2020, in its development as Lightway, ExpressVPN recognized the risks posed by quantum computer science, although its arrival is in a decade. Understanding the maxim of cybercriminals which “harvest now, decipher later”, they took measures to ensure that Lightway offered PQE security to users. Thus, all secure data with PQE must be protected against deciphering by quantum computers.
The White Paper, “Post-Quantum Wire Guélectricity: a practical implementation guide” by Expressvpn Engineers, Peter Membery and Timo Beyel, indicates that even if their development of post-quantum protection resolved by Lightway, they feared that Wireguard deployments do not obtain simple solutions well suited to VPN suppliers. “”
ExpressVPN has not stopped showing the rest of the VPN industry which must be done next, the introduction of proxy HTTPS management as an additional confidentiality option. This is thanks to a new “strategic partnership” with Bitripple which incorporates the LT3 acceleration in Lightway, providing an improvement in data transmission for slower internet connections.
