beemNet traffic monitoring

When you are connected to the internet through beemNet, your data traffic is actively monitored to protect you from online dangers such as phishing, malware, and other cyber threats. beem combines intelligent traffic analysis with identity anonymisation, ensuring strong and privacy-respecting protection for all users.

There are different ways in which beem handles your data traffic, depending on the origin of the traffic and the security level configured by your beem administrator. To help explain how this works, imagine your data traffic is like receiving a letter in the post:

No analysis

If you receive a letter from someone you trust, you do not need to inspect it. That is how Data Traffic Optimisation works: beem verifies the trusted source and then directly delivers the letter to you.

beem can tell the difference between data that needs inspection and data that is safe—like Swisscom-owned services and trusted sources like Microsoft Teams, Google Maps, and Spotify. This prevents unnecessary data traffic inspections, which frees up a lot of beemNet's bandwidth and thus enables a smooth and responsive user experience.

Basic analysis

Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) forms the baseline of all data traffic inspection. Think of it like examining the outside of a letter: beem checks the sender, the recipient, and the type of envelope. If anything looks suspicious, the letter is blocked.

In internet terms, this means the beem app inspects elements such as website addresses, protocols, and certificates. If a website is known to be harmful, like a phishing website, access is automatically blocked to protect the user.

Detailed analysis

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) is used to perform an in-depth analysis of data traffic and can be employed on top of SPI (beem Security Level 2 and upwards) by your beem administrator. In this case, it is not only like checking the outside of a letter (SPI) but also opening it to examine its content. If the content is harmful, the letter is blocked.

For DPI to work, a trusted Root Certificate Authority (Root CA) must be installed on the device running the beem app. This certificate allows encrypted data traffic—such as HTTPS websites or mobile app data—to be inspected. The Root CA for beem (Swisscom beemNet Root CA) is issued and signed directly by Swisscom and automatically installed on your device by the beem app.

TIP

When using the beem app, check on the home screen that both Protection and Encryption are enabled (green). This indicates that an active VPN tunnel to beemNet has been established, which is required for DPI to work.

Privacy

Swisscom takes your privacy very seriously. All data traffic analysis is performed automatically by machines, and it happens entirely within Switzerland. No one—not Swisscom employees, partners, or even your company’s beem administrators—can see the contents of your data.

INFO

Many trusted apps in Switzerland—e.g. TWINT, SBB, and various mobile banking apps—employ advanced security measures to protect your data. This ensures that if someone attempts to intercept the connection, they will not be able to decrypt or read the information. beem fully respects these protections, which is why only basic analysis (SPI) is applied in such cases.