Simon Migliano

Simon Migliano (born 1978) is a British author and journalist known for his research into Virtual private network, internet censorship,privacy and Computer security. He is employed by UK VPN review website Top10VPN.com as Head of Research, where he also tests and reviews VPN services. Journalists have cited Migliano as a digital privacy expert and a cybersecurity expert.
== Research ==
As part of his work for the Top10VPN.com website, Migliano has published a series of research reports on topics that include the risks associated with free VPNs, global VPN usage and demand statistics, the economic impact of government Internet outage, List of websites blocked in Russia and the dark web trade in hacked account credentials.
Migliano’s research has been reported on by major news publications such as The New York Times and The Guardian, and cited in reports by international government bodies, including the European Union Agency for Cybersecurity (ENISA) and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).
=== VPN investigations ===
Migliano has published a series of investigations exploring the risks of free VPN services. In 2018 he found that half of the most popular mobile VPN apps had ownership links to China.
In early 2019, Migliano published a security review of the top 150 free VPN apps in the Google Play|Google Play Store that found that 25% fail to protect their users' privacy due to DNS leak|DNS leaks.
He has published a number of follow-ups to these two investigations that put pressure on Apple Inc.|Apple and Google to adopt a more stringent vetting process for VPN apps in their app stores.
=== VPN statistics ===
Migliano has been monitoring significant increases in demand for VPN services around the world since 2020. He has documented notable surges in Iran, where VPN demand increased by 3,082% on September 22, 2022 after WhatsApp and Instagram were blocked in response to protests over the death of Mahsa Amini, and in Russia, which increased by 2,692% on March 14, 2022 when Instagram was blocked following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|invasion of Ukraine.
In 2020, Migliano worked with German market research firm GWI (company)|GWI to publish a study of global VPN usage, which found that 31% of internet users worldwide use a VPN.
=== Cost of internet shutdowns ===
Migliano works with fellow researcher Samuel Woodhams to co-author the Global Cost of Internet Shutdowns report. Initially an annual report first published in January 2020, the report is now a live tracker of the economic impact of internet shutdowns. As of January 2023, they have calculated the economic impact of deliberate government internet outages to have been almost $41.5 billion worldwide since 2019.
Since it was first published in 2020, Migliano and Woodhams’ research continues to be cited in media coverage of major internet shutdowns around the world.
It has also been widely cited in academic papers and public policy documents.
=== Websites blocked in Russia ===
Following the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Migliano began monitoring Internet censorship in Russia|Russian internet censorship and identifying List of websites blocked in Russia|websites that were blocked in Russia as a result of the war. As of February 2023, Migliano had analysed over 25,000 blocked Domain name|domains and identified 4,315 that had been blocked for publishing content relating to the war in Ukraine, including 3,595 news websites, a figure that includes temporary Mirror site|mirror sites used to try to beat the censors.
=== Dark web ===
In February 2018, Migliano first published the Darknet Market Price Index, which tracked the average selling price on Darknet market|darknet markets of popular account credentials. He found that Apple account credentials were the most valuable to hackers among consumer Brand|brands, changing hands for $15.39 on average. The most recent edition of the Index found that Apple ID|Apple IDs were much less valuable by August 2020 and were only worth $6.41.
Migliano published a study in March 2023 showing that there were more hacked account credentials for streaming services than for any other type of online account listed for sale on the darknet markets. He also found that there were more stolen log-in details for NordVPN listed for sale than for any other single account, followed by PayPal.
== Early life and education ==
Born in Italy in 1978, Migliano earned his Graduate Diploma in Journalism from the University of Technology, Sydney in 2005 following a B.A. Joint Honours in English and French from University of Liverpool in 2000. Migliano first became interested in VPNs and internet censorship after his experiences of working in China and leading a Shanghai-based team remotely from London.
Category:1978 births
Category:British writers
Category:British journalists