Sources in Pakistan Telecommunication Authority revealed that VPNs were being blocked through a firewall. VPNs are being blocked temporarily for their whitelisting as they have posed a security risk.

The unregistered and illegal VPNs can provide users access to sensitive data and illegal content.

The PTA started registration of the VPNs in 2010. The body has registered 20,500 VPNs so far. It said that more than 1,422 companies had registered their VPNs and it wanted to seed up the process of whitelisting.

It merits mention here that various countries including China, Russia, Turkiye and Iran have blocked several unregistered and illegal VPNs.

According to sources, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Qatar also block unregistered VPNs.

Internet users have been complaining about the disruption for past few hours

Suno News contacted the PTA spokesperson for comment but he remained unavailable.