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There are a number of reasons why you might want to start using a VPN. These security tools offer many benefits, including bypassing geographic restrictions for unlocking shows and films on popular streaming sites.

VPNs can also help to protect your privacy and make your browsing more secure (although it’s always a good idea to vet your VPN provider’s claims carefully — some do a better a job than others). VPNs can encrypt your traffic and provide protection against things like hackers, viruses, and malware. All of this is essential if you own a MacBook, because you don’t want online threats attacking your most precious device.

What is a VPN?

Without getting too deep in the weeds — we’ve already done so here — a virtual private network, or VPN, is an encrypted connection between your Mac and a private, remote server.

In the most basic sense, it’s a service that keeps you totally incognito on the web by masking your online activities and making it seem like your connection’s coming from somewhere you aren’t. All of your activity is untraceable and secure because everything passes through an encrypted tunnel. Nobody can see into the tunnel, and everything inside is protected against online threats.

Is a VPN actually necessary for Mac?

All Macs and MacBooks come with built-in antivirus software that blocks and removes malware, and any apps you download from the internet are swabbed for malicious code by Apple’s Gatekeeper tool. Furthermore, all of the data that lives on your macOS device’s hard drive is secured with FileVault 2, a full-disk program featuring XTS-AES-128 encryption and a 256-bit key.

It’s when any of your precious data ventures outside the localised protection of your Mac that things start to get dicey — and that happens every single time you connect to the web. Your Internet Service Provider, or ISP, tracks your every click to compile browsing logs they (sometimes) sell to marketers, who are champing at the bit to use your data for targeted ads. That information can also wind up in the hands of certain government agencies if your ISP is served with a subpoena.

Connecting to a public WiFi network is especially risky since you don’t know who set it up or who else is using it; wannabe hackers can easily hop on to intercept your internet traffic in some sort of “man-in-the-middle” attack when you’re browsing the web at a café, library, or airport.

A VPN takes care of those privacy issues and then some: With your IRL location hidden, you can skirt geo-restrictions that streaming services like Netflix have put in place and bypass government censorship in places like China. Online anonymity also means you’re free to dabble in torrenting/peer-to-peer file-sharing — not that we condone the illegal kind.

What is the best VPN for your Mac?

There’s no specialised VPN for Macs, but almost all major VPN providers maintain support for macOS apps. So, with lots of options, you’ll want to think carefully about which features matter most to you: Do you want a VPN with a huge server network and split tunneling for streaming and gaming? Will you feel more confident browsing with a kill switch or multihop (double VPN)? Do you need support for a bunch of connections based on the size of your household? Do you have the budget for add-ons like a dedicated IP?

Choosing the right VPN for your MacBook can be a daunting task. Fortunately for you, we have highlighted a selection of your best options. This list includes popular names like PureVPN, NordVPN, and TunnelBear.

These are the best VPNs for your Mac in 2021.

Gupshup, a business messaging platform that began its journey in India 15 years ago, surprised many when it raised $100 million in April this year, roughly 10 years after its last financing round, and attained the coveted unicorn status. Now just three months later, the San Francisco-headquartered startup has secured even more capital from high-profile investors.

On Wednesday, Gupshup said it had raised an additional $240 million as part of the same Series F financing round. The new investment was led by Fidelity Management, Tiger Global, Think Investments, Malabar Investments, Harbor Spring Capital, certain accounts managed by Neuberger Berman Investment Advisers, and White Oak.

Neeraj Arora, formerly a high-profile executive at WhatsApp who played an instrumental role in helping the messaging platform sell to Facebook, also wrote a significant check to Gupshup in the new tranche of investment, which continues to value the startup at $1.4 billion as in April.

In an interview with TechCrunch earlier this week, Beerud Sheth, co-founder and chief executive of Gupshup, said he extended the financing round after receiving too many inbound requests from investors. The round is now closed, he said.

The startup, which operates a conversational messaging platform that is used by over 100,000 businesses and developers today to build their own messaging and conversational experiences to serve their users and customers, is beginning to consider exploring the public markets by next year, said Sheth, though he cautioned a final decision is yet to be made.

The new investment, which includes some secondary transactions (some early investors and employees are selling their stakes), will be deployed into broadening the product offerings of Gupshup, he said. The startup is also eyeing some M&A opportunities and may close some deals this year, he added.

Before Gupshup became so popular with businesses, it existed in a different avatar. For the first six years of its existence, Gupshup was best known for enabling users in India to send group messages to friends. (These cheap texts and other clever techniques enabled tens of millions of Indians to stay in touch with one another on phones a decade ago.)

That model eventually became unfeasible to continue, Sheth told TechCrunch in an earlier interview.

“For that service to work, Gupshup was subsidizing the messages. We were paying the cost to the mobile operators. The idea was that once we scale up, we will put advertisements in those messages. Long story short, we thought as the volume of messages increases, operators will lower their prices, but they didn’t. And also the regulator said we can’t put ads in the messages,” he said earlier this year.

That’s when Gupshup decided to pivot. “We were neither able to subsidize the messages, nor monetize our user base. But we had all of this advanced technology for high-performance messaging. So we switched from consumer model to enterprise model. So we started to serve banks, e-commerce firms, and airlines that need to send high-level messages and can afford to pay for it,” said Sheth, who also co-founder freelance workplace Elance in 1998.

Over the years, Gupshup has expanded to newer messaging channels, including conversational bots and it also helps businesses set up and run their WhatsApp channels to engage with customers.

Sheth said scores of major firms worldwide in banking, e-commerce, travel and hospitality and other sectors are among the clients of Gupshup. These firms are using Gupshup to send their customers transaction information and authentication codes, among other use cases. “These are not advertising or promotional messages. These are core service information,” he said.

This is a developing story. More to follow…

The construction space has focused increasingly on mental health in the past several months, and for good reason: The consequences of the pandemic have caused many workers to struggle with issues of grief, financial strain, anxiety and isolation. One mental healthcare provider reported a 2,000% increase in workers accessing telehealth care between late 2020 and early 2021. 

Companies have recently introduced a raft of programs intended to improve employee mental health, from free counseling to a companywide week off to gamification. But what about those unfortunate times when an employee hasn’t gotten the help they need in time and is in the midst of a crisis?

On June 9, Terri Solomon, co-founder of Littler Mendelson’s New York office and co-chair of the Workplace Safety and Health Practice Group, and Marc McElhaney, CEO and director of professional services of Critical Response Associates, weighed in during an XpertHR webinar on how employers can best handle mental health crises in the office. 

1. Do treat suicide risk as a potential safety threat for others — not just the employee.

While suicidal individuals are rarely violent, the opposite is not necessarily true. “Very simply, if you look at the mass killings [at work], the active shooter incidents that have happened in this country … every single one of them involved a suicidal individual,” McElhaney said. “In fact, from my perspective as a psychologist, I would say that those were primarily suicidal acts.”

Employers have a duty to maintain a safe work environment for all employees. Threats or warning signs of suicide do not only threaten the safety of the individual in question, but could create an office-wide safety risk. Make sure your emergency action plan is up to date and intervene early if you detect warning signs. 

2. Do follow your gut.

Contrary to common belief, Solomon and McElhaney said, people at risk of suicide rarely “just snap.” Significant behavioral changes and warning signs nearly always accompany the possibility of self-harm. Pay attention to indications like increased alcohol use, lack of motivation, lack of communication, attendance issues, increased aggression or agitation, changes in performance, a disheveled appearance and inability to concentrate. Keep an eye on significant emotional shifts as well, especially depression, tearfulness and mood swings. 

Overall, trust your gut, Solomon and McElhaney said. If you sense a major change, ask the employee what’s wrong. If you have a strong suspicion, it’s even OK to ask the employee if they are contemplating suicide. “[For] most people, it feels very embarrassing, it feels very awkward, and there’s a lot of resistance to that,” McElhaney said. “But I will say that many people who are contemplating suicide would like to be asked. That gives them an opportunity to open up.”

3. Don’t just send the employee home.

For employers who are hesitant to get involved with their employees’ personal lives, it might be tempting to simply send a troubled employee home for the day — or a longer period of time — and hope for the best. This can be a big mistake, according to the panelists.

“The first thing you need to do is to make sure that person is safe,” Solomon said. Look up the employee’s emergency contact and let that person know the employee is thinking about or has threatened suicide. Wait until that person can come and pick up the individual. If the employee is working remotely, employers can involve the emergency contact, or in an emergency, call the police and ask for a welfare check. 

But if you know the emergency contact to be outdated and no longer on good terms with the employee — an ex-wife in a bitter divorce, for example — don’t release the at-risk employee into this person’s care, if possible. Try to find an alternative contact.

4. Do call for help, if the employee appears ready to take immediate action.

In the most serious cases — when a threat of self-harm is not only known, but imminent — call 911, an emergency contact, or if known, a treating therapist. Ask to have the employee taken directly to the hospital for evaluation and treatment. 

5. Don’t drive the employee to the hospital in your own car. 

A caring employer may want to drive the employee to the hospital themselves, but this could put both the employer and employee at risk, Solomon and McElhaney said. “You don’t want to put the manager in that kind of risk … that the employee en route to the hospital [is] going to, for example, swing open the car door in the middle of a busy highway,” Solomon said. 

6. Do follow up.

Maintaining mental health is a continuous journey; if you’re concerned about an employee, or if an employee has already had a crisis and is back at work, do more than check in once and move on. “It’s not enough just to send them to the [employee assistance program] or to say, ‘How’re you doing?’ and you have a nice conversation,” McElhaney said. “Follow up with them. See how they’re doing.” 

But “ask a genuine question that’s going to get a genuine answer,” McElhaney said. A perfunctory “How’re you doing?” may feel like it’s an adequate check-in, but it’s likely to get just as perfunctory a response. “You have to do a little bit more in terms of communication,” he said. “Ask something more specific. ‘COVID-19 has been really hard on everybody, working from home. How has it impacted you?’ And then actively listen.” 

7. Do create a workplace emergency plan that includes suicide risk. 

Employers can take plenty of actions right now to reduce the risk of suicide scenario. Hold all-staff meetings that destigmatize talking about mental health. Provide workers with work-sponsored “wellness” time off and look into expanding mental health benefits. Talk to employees about what to do if they’re concerned about a co-worker. Ensure employees know about everything their existing benefits can provide, from EAPs and free counseling to telehealth. Share the contact information for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (800-273-8255) alongside benefits information in the employee handbook. 

Finally, build suicide awareness and prevention into your workplace emergency response plan. In a crisis, it’s common to freeze or make the wrong call. Ensure managers and other employees are prepared and understand what to do if they recognize an imminent suicide risk at work. 

Ginnie Mae’s recent proposal to impose liquidity and risk-based capital requirements on their single-family issuers is the right approach for ensuring the long-term financial stability of this segment of the housing finance system. 

Unlike lenders or servicers for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae issuers are responsible for passing along payments to investors after borrower equity, federal agency and mortgage insurance resources are exhausted. If those issuers fail, Ginnie Mae is ultimately responsible for making those investor payments. 

Immense structural changes to the Ginnie Mae issuer landscape have occurred since 2008, posing significant potential risk to the agency. As depository institutions retreated from the mortgage market following the crisis for a number of reasons, including the loss of appetite for holding highly volatile and less liquid mortgage servicing rights (MSRs), nonbank financial institutions eagerly filled that gap. 

Unlike depositories, nonbanks do not face the same level of safety and soundness scrutiny as federally regulated depositories. That has enormous implications for the risk profile of these firms and for the broader housing finance system as they lend and service not just Ginnie Mae loans but also GSE-eligible mortgages. 

By contrast, depository institutions face significant oversight by safety and soundness regulators in multiple areas such as capital requirements, liquidity, credit and operational risk, to name but a few. In the years following the crisis, for example, bank capital requirements rose substantially including imposition of a 250% risk weight on MSRs, which effectively dealt a death blow to bank incentives to hold this asset.

Nonbanks’ great reliance on external sources of funding from other counterparties such as warehouse lines and repurchase agreements that can evaporate during a liquidity crisis like the one triggered by the financial crisis of 2008 also makes these firms riskier in terms of liquidity. Nonbank funding tends to be short-term in nature and coupled with a relatively limited number of funding sources can spell doom for a company if they get into trouble. 

Think back to Countrywide Financial Corporation’s liquidity crisis in 2008 when they struggled to gain access to funding, which ultimately led to their demise and eventual purchase by Bank of America, as a cautionary tale for the current set of nonbank financial institutions if another mortgage crisis were to unfold in the future.  

Beyond having far less stable funding sources, the balance sheets of most nonbank issuers are concentrated in MSRs, a notoriously unstable asset that even the best and most analytically sophisticated firms have been challenged to successfully manage over the long-term. Valuation of MSRs is a tricky business, with heavy reliance on accurate assessments of prepayments from analytical models, which, if misestimated, can blow a gigantic hole in a company’s balance sheet and/or its MSR hedging program. 

Another concerning aspect of nonbank financial institutions is the quality of their loan manufacturing processes. In a statistical analysis of GSE-eligible mortgage loan default, controlling for borrower, property, loan, and product characteristics over time, I found that loans originated between 2012-2015 by nonbank lenders were 1.9 times more likely to become 90 days past due or worse than loans originated by other lenders. 

While these results are not specific to Ginnie Mae loans, the operational processes used to originate loans for the GSEs and government mortgage programs are comparable. A lack of regulatory oversight into the operational processes used for loan origination and servicing of nonbanks is why Ginnie Mae’s proposal is sorely needed to level the playing field in terms of financial viability requirements of issuers. 

The imposition of risk-based capital requirements on private mortgage insurers via Private Mortgage Insurer Eligibility Requirements (PMIERs) by the GSEs also serves as a reasonable precedent for imposing liquidity and capital requirements on critical nonbank counterparties in the housing finance system by Ginnie Mae.

Not unlike Ginnie Mae nonbank issuers today, mortgage insurance companies resisted the new risk-based requirements, but once imposed, ultimately came to embrace the new rules as they significantly bolstered the stability of that industry that was shaken to the core during the crisis. 

Superior mortgage loan performance of mortgages originated after the 2008 crisis to a large degree has provided Ginnie Mae with some breathing room to get their arms around the nonbank risk issue.  However, the agency understands that the increase in and concentration of nonbank lenders and servicers of government loans over the last decade poses notable risk to Ginnie Mae should another crisis come along. 

Ginnie Mae’s proposal to strengthen liquidity and capital requirements of its single-family issuers is thus a prudent step in establishing a level playing field between depositories and nonbank financial institutions. It’s not surprising nonbanks are up in arms over this proposal, as their regulatory oversight is far different than that of depositories that may not always support strict safety and soundness oversight from their federal regulators but know it’s the price of admission for conducting their business.

Clifford Rossi is Professor-of-the Practice and Executive-in-Residence at the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.  He has 23 years of industry experience having held several C-level executive risk management roles at some of the largest financial institutions.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of HousingWire’s editorial department and its owners.

To contact the author of this story:
Clifford Rossi at [email protected]

To contact the editor responsible for this story:
Sarah Wheeler at [email protected]