VPN has the power to do various activities such as bypassing geo-blocks and firewalls, hiding your search history, assisting you in getting a better deal, and many more. Of course, it helps in different ways, but do they actually protect you from hackers? Yes, the answer to this question is that it can save you from various popular hacks only if you have the right VPN!
Hackers try to access your computer and collect all your information, ending in some bad experience that you will not like to have. For example, hackers can access your bank account and steal all your money without your knowledge of it. However, with robust security, users can thrive back their privacy; and a VPN protects your data on an unprotected server you use.
In this article, you will get to know how VPNs protect your system from hackers. Here you will get complete knowledge about VPN, how it works, how it provides protection, and many more. Keep going through the article to know everything.
What is VPN?
A VPN can be referred to as the network of remote servers through which the user can relate to the network by using the latest IP address, simultaneously moving all the data through encryption. Overall, we can say that VPN or virtual private network is a tool that can assist your network by providing encryption to the internet connection.
For example, Consider VPN as a tunnel through which all the data is transferred through an encrypted connection. In this way, you can secure the activity, securely visit your page, download files.
ISP or Internet service provider completes its duty to fulfil the request made by the VPN by selecting the right domain using the DNS resolver. In addition, it utilizes encryption to conjugate another level of security to avoid any Third-Party interference into your browsing information.
What Do We Need to Consider While Using the VPN?
While browsing the internet with a Virtual private network, only you're and the company using the VPN network will know your activity. Now, most companies providing VPN networks claim that they don't store any information about their customers.
While Using VPN, an internet provider can't comprehend what kind of data is being migrated. ISP will only have an idea of the VPN. Now that you have comprehended what VPN is and when you require the VPN, let us look at how a VPN works. Don't skip, and there is lots of information yet to come.
How Does A VPN Work?
Before we get to know how VPN protects your internet connection from Hackers, you have to understand how VPN performs its task. You can come back to this portion if you feel like you have lost the road. I can only hope that you have understood what a VPN is.
VPN is an online tool that salts away your IP address and at the same time encrypts your traffic. It is the common definition that you will get about VPN. But that is not enough. You have to understand how it hides and encrypts, and performs its task. Here is an explanation of how a VPN works:
- To get the benefit of the VPN, the first thing you have to do is install the VPN app on your system. It can be a phone or computer wherever you like to install it. Once it is downloaded, use the app to connect with the VPN server.
- The next step will be the negotiation with the server and the app. If everything goes well, it will automatically create a bond between them. This bond can also be said as an Encrypted VPN tunnel.
- While using this encrypted VPN tunnel, transferring data through this tunnel gets the benefit of end-to-end encryption. Only the app and VPN server can decrypt the data, and else no one can track the information.
- When a user visits a website, the VPN app will send the connection request with the help of the ISP network to the VPN server. The VPN server will then hide your IP address, and this is because the website you are visiting will only be able to see the VPN server instead of the IP address, which is the common data point of the user.
- In this way, after completing the entire process, the ISP will be able to see the VPN server's IP address instead of the user's IP address and the IP address of the website you are visiting.
Now that you know how VPN works, let us jump into the most important question, how will VPN protect you from hackers. So, without spending any more time, let's jump into the points.
How VPN Will Protect from Hackers?
The truth is VPN doesn't make you completely invulnerable to the hacker. Still, it protects you from some of the famous hacking methods. Here are some of the popular hacking ways from which VPN can provide you protection.
- Public Wi-Fi hacking methods
- Doxing
- DDoS Attacks
Keep on reading to learn what these attacks are, and VPN protects them.
VPN Protects you from Public Wi-Fi Hacks
Today, in this epoch of digitalization, ignoring free public Wi-Fi is near impossible. Possibilities are you are working from a local restaurant or a coffee shop or scrolling through your social media platform while standing in a queue.
You may find free Wi-Fi or hotspots almost everywhere. Well, it may make us happy, but there is a scary fact hidden from you. Utilizing the public Wi-Fi or hotspot is the most common way to serve all your unprotected data to the hacker with your hand.
In 2021, the most common and popular hacking method is to use unauthorized fake WAPS or MITM attacks. Both of these techniques of hacking rely on the rate of the user using public Wi-Fi.
An unauthorized MITM or Man in the Middle attack is a hacking technique that occurs when a hacker places as a middleman between your device and the public Wi-Fi network without your knowledge.
This allows them to consider all your activities. All the action first reaches the hacker's computer instead of the Internet network. Then, with the help of the MITM attack, the hacker gets access to your internet and device activity data.
For example, they can easily get into the page you have visited, the site you are operating, or the document you open on your system, credentials, etc. They get access to almost everything. Now the question arises:
If you use the VPN, it can provide your protection from both sides of this hack. You can control Operations such as intentional MITM attacks. The VPN server encrypts all your digital traffic and the data before sending it to the public Wi-Fi or the hacker's system.
So, even if you are using a fake Wi-Fi connection, the hacker will fail to access your data. VPN network ensures the safety of your data.
VPN Secures your System from Being Doxed
You might still be unknown with the term Doxing. Doxing can be defined as a method through which the hacker collects or shares a user's personal information in public to fulfil their motive.
There might be various reasons behind doxing the user; some of the reasons are harassment, identity theft, vigilante justice, swatting, or cyberbullying. Apart from all these, the most common motive behind doxing is to get the unique IP address of the user by any means. With the doxing the user, hackers can access important information such as ZIP code or about the person.
Using a VPN means you can hide your IP address from the hacker. Instead, a decoy will be distributed among all the users. This means with the help of the VPN. You can easily make your IP address nearly untraceable. Once your VPN server salt away your IP address, it gets nearly impossible for the hacker to track your information. But there is some other way that a hacker can reach your IP address.
The DDoS Attack is Prohibited while Using a VPN
The DDoS attack is another widespread attack from which VPN provides us protections. But what does DDos attack mean?
DDoS is the abbreviation used for Distribution Denial of Service. It is a kind of cyber hacking that generally protects you from using the internet. How Scary it is! But how does the hacker do it? Kindly look forward to it. Here is the explanation:
- At first, the hacker identifies the Unique IP address of the Users.
- The next thing the hacker does is directing the botnet army. Botnet army is a massive group of the virus-infected system which is under the control of the hacker. With the help of this Botnet army, hackers send many unwanted requests to the user's IP address.
- Getting so many requests per second can overwhelm the IP address.
- Your IP address fails to handle the influx, and as a result, your computer internet stops working. Your internet server stops allowing traffic. Either the internet stops working, or they get slowed down, which binds you to go offline.
The best way to stop this attack from the core is to stop the hackers from accessing your IP address. And the solution you need to prevent hackers is nothing but using VPN.
Using the virtual Private Network is the best way to solve the problem from the core and console your IP address from the hackers. Even if the hacker is trying to DDos the VPN server, they will fall very hard. The majority of VPN service providers use the measures Industrial-level to stop DDoS attacks on the VPN servers.
Final Thoughts
The internet has given us strength and made our life easier, but at the same time, it has made us vulnerable. With the advancement of digitalization, our personal information is prone to get hacked. Yet, we lack enough information about how that can be handled?
VPN is a one-stop solution, which is providing extra protection of our data. A VPN is also useful while using some of the banned sites. It is crucial to secure our data and our activity so that we don't have any cyber-crimes. VPN can help us to secure the data from the hacker.
Hackers are quite smart, they have different methods to access the data, so it is better to hide our most common data point, i.e., our Unique IP address. You may get various VPN service options, but choosing the right one doesn't fail to remember the points mentioned above.
Do you value your privacy online?
Use VPN Surf and surf safely and securely in the open waters of the internet.
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