Abstract: Conventionally, network-accessible devices (e.g., cellular phones, tablets, personal computers) have been able to establish virtual point-to-point connections between a local modem and a virtual private network (VPN) across a public network, such as the Internet. However, providers often capitalize on this “open” connection and retrieve information regarding a user's browsing history. Moreover, some public network firewalls, which identify the encryption level of the user's communication(s), may prevent the user from accessing the VPN and other websites. An encrypted router can passively secure the user's connection to the Internet by tunneling between the local modem and the VPN. The encrypted router also obfuscates firewalls configured to flag communication(s) having high encryption levels by re-wrapping the communication(s) with a lower encryption level.