1. What is VPN?

VPN (Virtual Private Network) is a secure encrypted connection of a user to the network. In fact, it's a virtual isolated network within a regular network, accessible by password. And everything that happens inside it is inaccessible to those outside. The most they can see is the very fact of such an encrypted network's existence.

2. How is VPN used?

In everyday practice, the most common scenario is creating a protected tunnel between two points, inside which sensitive data is transmitted, inaccessible to anyone from outside. For example, this is exactly how ATMs or payment terminals at store checkouts connect to a bank's network through the regular internet.

Another example is local offices of international companies. Well, the most popular and in-demand scenario for using VPN today is accessing internet resources. If normally we connect to the internet and go online through our provider's server, then in the case of VPN, thanks to the tunnel, we go online through an encrypted channel via some remote server, which could be in another country or continent. There's another nuance. Since we go online through a remote server, not through our provider, we have that server's IP address, not our Russian one.

 

 

3. What types of VPN are there?

Actually, globally VPN is divided into paid and free. There are also public networks (those very paid and free ones) and private ones, as in the case of a large international company, which cannot be accessed from outside.

4. Is VPN banned in Russia?

Not at all. As presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said not long ago, answering a journalist's question about whether he uses VPN to access blocked sites: "Yes, of course. Why not? It's not prohibited."

Most likely, it won't be banned in the future either. According to Andrei Klishas, head of the Federation Council Committee on Constitutional Legislation and State Building, Russia is not currently developing laws that would involve prosecuting VPN users. "I believe that if the state decides to block something, it should ensure that blocking. There is no responsibility for people now, and we in parliament are not developing it," the senator stated.

5. What are the pitfalls?

Banks and international companies will figure it out themselves. But as for individuals, VPN causes the biggest difficulties when using services related to geolocation. Delivery apps, parking payment services, dating services, and others simply don't understand where you are and what they should offer you.

Another nuance is that a VPN connection cannot be as fast as regular internet. First, all data transmitted through VPN is first encoded and then decoded - and this takes time. This is most noticeable with free services.

Speed also decreases because with regular internet we have many invisible paths to access a particular site. With VPN - there's only one path. And if it starts malfunctioning, our internet simply stops working.

Moreover, as a rule, DDoS attacks used by hackers are carried out using a huge number of requests to a site from all over the world. The site stops working, unable to handle the load. For example, at the very beginning of the special operation in Ukraine, foreign hackers unleashed waves of attacks on Russian government websites or the same government services. And to protect them, programmers simply disabled access to them from foreign IP addresses. Those who were using VPN in our country at that time realized that government agency websites had become inaccessible.

6. Risks of using VPN

The main one - access to data, strangely enough. Yes, your data cannot be seen by someone from outside, but there's also the VPN service itself, its servers and its admins. As the ancients said: "Who will guard the guards?" For example, in July 2020, a database of 20 million users of free VPN solutions appeared in the public domain. Sometimes developers directly write into the contract the possibility of accessing user data. It's also important that the provider doesn't keep logs of user actions - this will protect you in case of a data leak from the provider," Kaspersky Lab cybersecurity expert Dmitry Galov told RG.

In addition, information security specialists advise avoiding free services whenever possible, as those who don't earn money in an obvious way, earn it in some other way. "The more tempting the offer or promise of something free ("VPN for 1 ruble", "gift of 1000 rubles") and the more the user is rushed ("last chance", "hurry up"), the greater the risks of encountering internet scammers," Yakov Kravtsov, head of the research department of Group-IB's Digital Risk Protection Department, told RG.

 

7. So which VPN is better to use?

The most reliable way is to use your own VPN server. But this requires a fairly serious understanding of the subject. And it's still available to very few people. A paid service is a worthy alternative, albeit with less control on your part. Free VPN can also be different. There are free options from paid services - with lower speed and no ability to choose servers, and also with ads - there are risks, but at least it's clear how they make money. But just a free VPN is a very risky venture.

Six VPNs to be careful with

Six VPN services using questionable security methods were discovered by research company AppEsteem. Their names are Surfshark, Atlas VPN, VyprVPN, VPN Proxy Master, Sumrando VPN and Turbo VPN. These services install self-signed root certificates instead of trusted ones, which jeopardizes the security of data that the user sends and receives. Root certificates are those used to authenticate user VPN connections and are issued by a certified center. These certificates verify that the owner of the software or website is who they claim to be. Moreover, Surfshark continues to install such a certificate even if the user cancels it.