The Moment of Vulnerability
VPN connections can drop. Network changes, server maintenance, protocol switches — any of these can cause a brief disconnection. During that moment, your device reverts to its default internet connection. Unencrypted. Exposed.
What a Kill Switch Does
A kill switch blocks all internet traffic when the VPN connection drops. No data leaves your device until the encrypted tunnel is re-established.
How VynVPN's Kill Switch Works
System-Level Implementation
Our kill switch operates at the OS network layer — not the application layer. This means:
- All applications are blocked, not just the VPN app
- DNS queries are blocked (preventing DNS leaks during reconnection)
- IPv6 traffic is blocked (preventing IPv6 leaks)
- The block persists even if the VPN app crashes
Automatic Reconnection
When the kill switch activates:
- All traffic is immediately blocked
- The client attempts reconnection with the same server
- If that fails, it tries the next server in your failover list
- Once connected, traffic resumes automatically
- Average reconnection time: under 3 seconds
Configuration Options
- **Strict mode** — Block everything until VPN reconnects (default for business plans)
- **Flexible mode** — Allow local network access during disconnection
- **Per-app exceptions** — Whitelist specific apps that can bypass the kill switch
Why Some VPNs Don't Have It
Application-layer kill switches are easy to implement but unreliable. They only block traffic from the VPN app itself. System-level kill switches require deeper OS integration and platform-specific engineering — which is why we built native apps for each platform rather than using cross-platform wrappers.