INDEX / DIRECTORY / NORDVPN

NordVPN

Cybersecurity & VPN 64 CITED SOURCES UPDATED 2026-08-29 METHOD V6.4
BDS-1000 Score 224 /1000 D Tier D - Moderate
Military ↗ 0.00 Digital ↗ 2.50 Economic ↗ 0.86 Political ↗ 1.96
OWNERSHIP TREE 0 brands and group businesses View all

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Key Findings

  • Digital: NordVPN advertises an Israel/Tel Aviv VPN location; the reviewed record also identifies a Tel Aviv-attributed NordVPN network endpoint, but does not establish physical hardware, customer-data storage, or Israeli legal jurisdiction for that location.1, 2
  • Economic: DataPacket describes a long-term global server-infrastructure relationship with NordVPN; the evidence supports only a limited Israeli network-service nexus, not an Israeli office, payroll operation, or company-owned local infrastructure.3, 2
  • Political: No public evidence identified in the focused review of NordVPN or Nord Security statements on Israel/Palestine, lobbying, anti-BDS advocacy, or donations to Israeli military, settlement, or advocacy bodies.4, 5
  • Not found: No public evidence identified of Israeli military or security contracts, Project Nimbus participation, deployment by Israeli state actors, or operations in Israeli settlements.6, 7, 8, 9

Target Profile

FieldDetail
Company NameNordVPN / Nord Security
JurisdictionNordVPN states it operates under Panama’s jurisdiction; its ownership page states that the service is owned and operated by nordvpn S.A. The reviewed materials do not provide nordvpn S.A.’s incorporation jurisdiction or complete ownership chain.10, 11
HeadquartersNo public evidence identified of a single group headquarters in the reviewed materials. NordSec B.V.’s legal notice identifies an Amsterdam address; Nord Security states it was founded in Lithuania.12, 13
SectorConsumer and enterprise cybersecurity, including VPN subscription services, dedicated-IP and corporate-VPN products.1, 3
OwnershipPrivate. Publicly announced investors include Novator Ventures, Burda Principal Investments, General Catalyst, and Warburg Pincus; disclosed materials do not provide shareholdings, voting rights, or a complete capitalisation table.14, 15
Key Executives / GovernanceCo-founders Tomas Okmanas, Eimantas Sabaliauskas, and Jonas Karklys; leadership materials also identify Karina Dirvonskienė, Dina Lurje, Laurynas Zabulis, Marijus Briedis, and Gediminas Lisauskas. Announcements stated that Novator’s Birgir Már Ragnarsson and Warburg Pincus’s Chandler Reedy joined the board at their respective financing rounds; continuing membership is not established by those announcements.14, 15, 12
Israeli-Nexus SummaryAdvertised Tel Aviv VPN access and limited evidence of a Tel Aviv-attributed network endpoint; no public evidence identified of Israeli state, military, settlement, or political involvement.1, 2, 6

Key Facts:

Executive Summary

NordVPN is a consumer and enterprise privacy-service brand within the Nord Security group. Its documented Israel-related nexus is limited to its marketed Israel VPN location - through which users can select a Tel Aviv IP address - and network evidence consistent with at least one Tel Aviv-attributed endpoint. The Israel-location page itself contains inconsistent server counts, displaying 24 in one place and referring to 20 elsewhere; it therefore does not resolve the current size of the location.1 DataPacket describes a long-term global infrastructure relationship with NordVPN, but neither that case study nor the network record establishes that a particular Tel Aviv facility hosts NordVPN equipment.3, 2

The available evidence does not establish an Israeli office, subsidiary, R&D site, reseller, local payroll operation, physical data-centre address, local customer base, or company-owned Israeli hardware. Nor does it establish that customer data is stored in Israel, that traffic using the advertised exit location is necessarily subject to Israeli jurisdiction, or that NordVPN has a contract with any Israeli state body.16, 1, 2, 17

The audits found no public evidence of defence contracting or supply to the IDF, Israeli Ministry of Defense, intelligence agencies, police, prison service, settlement authorities, or Israeli defence primes. No public evidence was identified of Project Nimbus participation, state or military cloud work, surveillance or biometric technology provision, offensive-cyber tools, or deployment of NordVPN products by Israeli state actors in occupied territory.6, 7, 8, 9 The relevant UN and accountability-document checks also returned no NordVPN-specific record, but several are document-scoped results rather than comprehensive findings about all possible activity.6, 18, 4

The political record is similarly limited. The reviewed sources document Nord Security’s 2022 response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, but no official Israel/Palestine statement or related crisis asset mobilisation was identified in the focused review.5 No public evidence was identified of lobbying, anti-BDS advocacy, or donations to Israeli military, settlement, or advocacy bodies; these targeted absence findings are not substitutes for a complete review of every corporate, charity, lobbying, or procurement record.4

On the fixed, human-vetted V4 assessment, NordVPN receives a BRS of 224, placing it in Tier D (Moderate). This reflects the documented, but limited, Israeli digital/network-service nexus and unresolved infrastructure detail - not a finding of military supply, settlement activity, or Israeli state collaboration.

Timeline of Relevant Events

DateEvent
2012NordVPN states that Tom Okman and Eimantas Sabaliauskas created the service; Nord Security states that it was founded in Lithuania that year.10, 14
2018DataPacket states that NordVPN first ordered servers from it, beginning a long-term pay-as-you-go infrastructure relationship.3
27 March 2019NordVPN reported receiving a Roskomnadzor demand to comply with Russian content-blocking rules and announced it would decommission Russian-based servers.19
1 April 2019NordVPN reported completing its withdrawal of Russian-based servers.19, 20
October 2021Nord Security announced its acquisition of Atlas VPN.14
April 2022Nord Security announced a US$100 million external financing round led by Novator Ventures; it stated that Birgir Már Ragnarsson joined the board.15
2022Nord Security stated that it joined forces with Surfshark and formed a group of companies.14
28 September 2023Nord Security announced a further US$100 million round led by Warburg Pincus, at a stated US$3 billion valuation; it stated that Chandler Reedy joined the board.14
August 2024DataPacket reported supplying more than 2,000 NordVPN servers across its locations for VPN, dedicated-IP, and corporate-VPN products.3
28 March 2025A proposed consumer class action named Nordvpn S.A., Tefincom SA, and NordSec B.V.; it concerned subscriptions and consumer-protection allegations, not Israel/Palestine activity.21
2026A WIPO domain-name decision involving NordSec B.V. and an Israel-based respondent concerned <nordlayer.org> trademark and domain rights, not an Israeli operational or political relationship.22

Corporate Overview

NordVPN states that it is owned and operated by nordvpn S.A. and was created in 2012 by Tom Okman and Eimantas Sabaliauskas.10 Corporate disclosures do not establish a complete legal-entity chart, ultimate parent, shareholder register, beneficial-ownership structure, or controlling stakes held by named investors.10, 16, 14, 15

Nord Security identifies affiliated entities including UAB 360 IT and 720 IT UAB in Lithuania, Radically Better Internet GmbH in Germany, NordSec B.V. in the Netherlands, and Nord Security Inc. in Delaware. It states that group companies share infrastructure, systems, web hosting, and technology; the list is non-exhaustive and does not establish ownership percentages.16 NordSec B.V.’s legal notice identifies an Amsterdam registration and names Ruta Gorelcionkiene as managing director.13

Nord Security announced the 2021 Atlas VPN acquisition and its 2022 combination with Surfshark, but the cited disclosures do not establish an Israeli acquisition, Israeli R&D operation, or Israeli technology investment.14 No public evidence identified of an Israeli incorporation, office, permanent establishment, R&D centre, reseller, distributor, franchisee, or licensee. NordVPN’s partnership pages offer reseller and affiliate programmes generally, but do not identify an Israeli partner.16, 17

Domain Summaries

Military: Military

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence identified of contracts, tenders, framework agreements, memoranda, partnerships, or procurement awards involving NordVPN or Nord Security and the Israeli Ministry of Defense, IDF, Israel Prison Service, Border Police, intelligence agencies, settlement authorities, or Israeli defence primes.7, 8, 9 No public evidence identified of a militarised or tactical NordVPN/NordLayer product, sales to Israeli security forces, export-control filings for Israeli military end users, weapons-system integration, or base-support services.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

NordVPN is a general-purpose consumer and enterprise privacy-service provider rather than a manufacturer of weapons, military equipment, or purpose-built kill-chain technology. The advertised Israeli VPN location does not itself evidence military deployment, data-request compliance, or a security contract.1 The absence findings are based on the specified databases, registries, corporate materials, and focused searches; they do not prove that no undisclosed relationship exists.

NordVPN’s 2019 decision to remove Russian servers after refusing Roskomnadzor’s content-blocking demand is a verified example of resistance to a state compliance demand, but it concerns Russia and is not evidence about Israel.19, 20

Named Entities and Evidence Map

EntityEvidence record
Israeli Ministry of Defense / IDF / security bodiesNo public evidence identified of a NordVPN or Nord Security contract or deployment.7, 8, 9
Elbit Systems, IAI, Rafael, IMI/Elbit LandNo public evidence identified of supply, joint development, co-production, or technology transfer.
Warburg Pincus / Allied Universal / G4SAn attenuated indirect link exists through Warburg Pincus’s separate portfolio company relationship to G4S. It is not an act of Nord Security, its founders, or NordVPN.23, 24, 25

Digital: Digital

Mechanism of Involvement

NordVPN markets an Israel VPN location and instructs users seeking a Tel Aviv IP address to select Israel. The same page gives inconsistent location counts - 24 in one area and 20 elsewhere.1 A network-intelligence record attributes IP address 169.150.226.44 to NordVPN, with a DataPacket hostname and Tel Aviv geolocation. This supports an attributed network endpoint, not ownership of local hardware or an Israeli legal entity.2

NordVPN states that it uses colocated and RAM-only servers globally and that a substantial portion of its fleet is internally owned and managed alongside partner-hosted servers. The reviewed materials do not attribute these global models to the Israel location specifically.1, 2 No public evidence identified of Israeli-origin enterprise technology, surveillance or biometric products, AI systems, Project Nimbus participation, Israeli state/military cloud work, or deployment by Israeli state bodies.6

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

An advertised exit location does not establish the physical location of servers, storage of customer data in Israel, legal access to all traffic under Israeli jurisdiction, the identity of a host, or the routing topology. The materials do not disclose the Israel location’s data-centre address, ownership, virtual-location status, transit providers, or legal-access arrangements.1, 2

No public evidence identified of offensive-cyber products, intelligence services, or population-monitoring tools being supplied to Israeli actors. The UN-report and settlement-database checks are document-scoped where stated and should not be treated as conclusive market-wide absence.6, 18

Named Entities and Evidence Map

EntityEvidence record
NordVPN Israel/Tel Aviv locationAdvertised consumer VPN location; server count unresolved from internally inconsistent page.1
DataPacketDocumented global NordVPN infrastructure supplier since 2018; no proof that its Tel Aviv point of presence hosts a NordVPN server.3, 2
Israeli state and security bodiesNo public evidence identified of contracts, deployments, cloud participation, or surveillance provision.6, 7

Economic: Economic

Mechanism of Involvement

The record supports a limited Israeli network-service nexus: an advertised Tel Aviv virtual location and a Tel Aviv-attributed NordVPN endpoint.1, 2 DataPacket describes a long-term relationship and reported more than 2,000 NordVPN servers across its locations as of August 2024, but does not specify whether Tel Aviv was among them.3

Nord Security’s named investors include Novator Ventures, Burda Principal Investments, General Catalyst, and Warburg Pincus. Public announcements establish investment participation, not current shareholdings, voting rights, or control.14, 15 No public evidence identified of Israeli sovereign-bond activity, state financing, acquisition of an Israeli operating company, Israeli government or defence contracts, or traceable Israeli revenue, tax, payroll, procurement, or profit-repatriation flows.17, 14, 15

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The available materials do not establish an Israeli office, payroll operation, company-owned infrastructure, or local data centre. They also do not establish the physical nature of the Israel location, local revenue, tax contribution, or local procurement spend.1, 3, 2

No public evidence identified of operations or commercial distribution directed to West Bank, East Jerusalem, Golan Heights, or Israeli settlements. The limited endpoint and infrastructure evidence should not be transposed into settlement activity or government contracting.1, 2, 17

Named Entities and Evidence Map

EntityEvidence record
NordSec B.V.Amsterdam-registered group entity and EU Digital Services Act representative; this is not an Israeli entity.13
nordvpn S.A.Identified by NordVPN as service owner/operator; incorporation jurisdiction and ownership chain not disclosed in reviewed source.10
DataPacket / Tel Aviv endpointSupports a limited network-service nexus, not ownership of local infrastructure or a local operating company.3, 2

Political: Political

Mechanism of Involvement

No public evidence identified in the focused review of an official NordVPN or Nord Security statement on Israel/Palestine, Israel-related crisis asset mobilisation, lobbying, PAC activity, anti-BDS advocacy, or donations to the IDF, FIDF, JNF, settlement organisations, military-welfare bodies, or regional advocacy organisations.4, 5

Nord Security’s documented public conflict response concerned Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine: it described the invasion as war, announced discontinuation of business services for clients in Russia, stopped accepting Russian-bank payments, and reported support for NGOs and at-risk users.5 This is not an Israel/Palestine position.

Counter-Arguments and Evidence Limits

The strongest defence is that no audited record ties NordVPN’s Israeli network location to political advocacy, state partnership, settlement policy, or Israel/Palestine messaging. No public evidence identified of Israeli state ownership, a golden share, a state-security mission, formal government partnership, or “Brand Israel” sponsorship.11, 4

The negative findings are bounded by the reviewed materials and searches; they do not replace a complete examination of every lobbying, charity, foundation, procurement, or corporate-register record. A consumer-protection complaint and a WIPO domain dispute are unrelated to Israel/Palestine activity.21, 22

Named Entities and Evidence Map

EntityEvidence record
Nord Security / NordVPNNo public Israel/Palestine statement or related political activity identified in focused review.4, 5
Israeli state / settlement bodiesNo public evidence identified of state partnership, lobbying, donations, or settlement operations.4, 7
WIPO respondent in IsraelThe 2026 case concerns a domain name, not an Israeli operational or political relationship.22

BDS-1000 Score (V4)

DomainIMPV-Domain Score
Military0.000.000.000.00
Digital2.507.009.002.50
Economic1.504.007.500.86
Political2.505.509.001.96

V_MAX is driven by Digital: the documented Israeli/Tel Aviv VPN location and attributed endpoint create a direct, though limited, digital nexus. The Tier reflects evidence-only, human-vetted scoring rather than an inference of military, settlement, or state involvement. V4 uses scale-free Impact × magnitude/proximity assessment.

Methodology Note

Footnotes

  1. https://nordvpn.com/he/servers/israel/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13

  2. https://www.netify.ai/resources/ips/169.150.226.44 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12 ↩13

  3. https://www.datapacket.com/case-study/nordvpn ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9

  4. https://bdsmovement.net/Guide-to-BDS-Boycott ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  5. https://nordsecurity.com/blog/cybersecurity-in-modern-day-warfare ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  6. https://docs.un.org/en/A/HRC/59/23 ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7

  7. https://investigate.afsc.org/about-tool ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  8. https://www.sibat.mod.gov.il/Industries/directory/Pages/default.aspx ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  9. https://www.whoprofits.org/companies?search=NordVPN ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  10. https://support.nordvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/20911146148113-The-founders-and-owners-of-NordVPN ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  11. https://support.nordvpn.com/hc/en-us/articles/19441152966161-Where-is-NordVPN-based ↩ ↩2

  12. https://nordsecurity.com/leadership ↩ ↩2

  13. https://nordsecurity.com/impressum ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  14. https://nordsecurity.com/blog/nord-security-raised-another-100m-investment-round ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6 ↩7 ↩8 ↩9 ↩10 ↩11 ↩12

  15. https://nordsecurity.com/blog/nord-security-raises-outside-capital-16-B-valuation ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5 ↩6

  16. https://nordsecurity.com/privacy-notice-for-recruitment-candidates ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4 ↩5

  17. https://nordvpn.com/become-a-partner/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  18. https://www.ohchr.org/en/business/bhr-database ↩ ↩2

  19. https://nordvpn.com/blog/nordvpn-servers-roskomnadzor-russia/ ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  20. https://www.trustedreviews.com/news/nord-vpn-russia-3686974 ↩ ↩2

  21. https://truthinadvertising.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/04/Kandeh-v-NordVPN-complaint.pdf ↩ ↩2

  22. https://www.wipo.int/amc/en/domains/decisions/pdf/2026/d2026-1218.pdf ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  23. https://warburgpincus.com/2023/09/28/nord-security-raised-another-100m-investment-round/ ↩

  24. https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/latest-news/warburg-pincus-non-response-re-g4s-takeover/ ↩

  25. https://investigate.afsc.org/company/g4s ↩