US Senator Requests NSA Guidance on VPN Best Practices

<p>A prominent US senator is requesting that the National Security Agency (NSA) provide guidance to the public regarding best practices for using virtual private networks (VPNs) to secure communications from foreign surveillance.</p><p>VPNs route all of a user's internet traffic through an encrypted connection to a remote server, which helps ensure that no one between the user and the server can access the encrypted content. Additionally, VPNs enable users to conceal their IP addresses from the destination servers they interact with. While US agencies have previously endorsed the use of VPNs, they have not specified which services offer sufficient protection.</p><h2>Limitations of VPNs</h2><p>There are several limitations that can compromise the protections users may expect from their VPNs. For example, the encrypted tunnel may terminate once a server decrypts the traffic and forwards it to its final destination. This means that decrypted traffic, as well as the sending and receiving IP addresses, could be exposed to unauthorized personnel or attackers who compromise the server. Furthermore, VPNs do not encrypt certain types of metadata, such as timestamps, which can allow nation-states to develop profiles useful for intelligence purposes.</p>