Droplets without private networking communicate over the public internet. Your traffic can be listened to and if it is plain text and if you have sensitive data (every app I&#x27;ve ever worked on always has) then that sensitive data is flying around free and clear.<p>If you have Droplets with private networking you can communicate within that data center but other Droplets in the data center could still eavesdrop on your packets. To feel secure you need to encrypt data that goes between your droplets.<p>As for iptables: if you don&#x27;t need a port open, don&#x27;t open it.