Nord Security has taken an important step toward transparency and accountability by making the source code for its Linux NordVPN client and related networking libraries available.
To alleviate users’ security and privacy concerns, the company wants the coding community’s input and scrutiny to improve its services. The NordVPN MeshNet private tunneling feature will be free for all users who install the software, even if they do not have a paid subscription, according to the announcement.
Users can use the NordVPN MeshNet private tunneling feature to create private tunnels between other NordVPN users, access the internet via the shared network, and access internal devices such as private game servers. Nord’s MeshNet feature includes the LibDrop library, which allows users to send and receive files over the private tunnel.
Furthermore, Nord has released the LibTelio networking library, which is heavily used across all NordVPN applications on all operating systems and is in charge of creating encrypted networks using the MeshNet feature.
The decision to make these products open source reflects Nord’s commitment to transparency. NordVPN Linux applications, as well as two libraries, Libtelio and Libdrop, are available on Nord Security’s GitHub page.
The company encourages users to modify the source code to meet their specific needs and to scrutinize the source code for bugs. For critical bugs, Nord Security’s HackerOne bug bounty program offers rewards ranging from $10,000 to $50,000.
“Open sourcing Libtelio is a particularly important step because this code forms the backbone of all our NordVPN applications, not just our Linux client,” explains Nord. “Putting this material into the hands of the Linux community encourages talented coders and developers to scrutinize our code and make our service better.”
The sources for this piece include an article in BleepingComputer.