VPN Explained
Privacy and Access
Introduction
A Virtual Private Network, or VPN for short, is a commonly used technology that helps protect your privacy and digital security from threats that inherently exist when using public Internet resources. While originally built for professional or enterprise use to connect geographically dispersed local networks into one common network, it has become increasingly popular in recent years in private use by individuals concerned with privacy and security.
In this article, we explain what the technology is, how it works, what some of its limitations are, and final recommendations for choosing and using VPN everyday.
Bottom Line Up Front
Remember that the public Internet is made up of multiple layers of network infrastructure that is maintained by different parties including governments, service and utility providers, private organizations, and even individuals.
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network and is a technology used to establish an encrypted channel that connects systems or networks that are in different locations physically.
VPN networks use the public Internet infrastructure, but protect and manage the communications they route.
A VPN connection has an entry point (gateway) and an exit point (exit node). The entry gateway is the point at which encryption begins, and the exit point is where VPN protections end, subjecting the communication to the public Internet infrastructure.
VPN providers maintain gateways at various locations throughout the public Internet and also geographically dispersed throughout the world.
In most cases, VPN software runs on the local device and sends all your communications across the public Internet but inside of an encrypted tunnel maintained by the VPN gateways.
Some VPN solutions, especially web-browser plugins, only send certain information or communications through a VPN tunnel; an architecture known as split-tunneling.
VPN is often used professionally to connect systems that are physically separated onto the same logical network so they can benefit from “local” access as if they were physically co-located.
VPN is used to encrypt all the data that is sent through the connection so that it cannot be seen from public network resources, greatly improving your privacy and the security of the information you transmit and receive. More specifically, VPN defers and limits visibility of your communications.
VPN uses a peer-to-peer authentication sequence that also protects the communication from being tampered with or otherwise compromised in its integrity.
VPN is also often used to mask the physical location of systems connected to the Internet, or to evade region-based restrictions imposed on Internet content otherwise available to the public.
VPN is not a perfect solution that protects your privacy completely; your activity and your identity can still be exposed even when using VPN.
There are many VPN providers to choose from and Practive Security recommends Express VPN, Proton VPN, and the VPN solutions provided by Antimalware and Antivirus software.
Practive Security recommends always using VPN to protect your privacy and data as a general digital health best practice.
Some professional service providers and companies will block access to their resources when they detect VPN is in use by the source, because VPN is also regularly abused by the criminal underground.
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