Do VPNs protect you from hackers? Experts answer

VPNs can be powerful tools in protecting us from hackers, but not all cyber attacks. dVPNs are even more effective.

2 mins Read
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Using a VPN (Virtual Private Network) can enhance our online privacy and security in many ways. By encrypting our online traffic and hiding our IP addresses, VPNs make us more anonymous online. But they also offer some additional protections against being hacked.

Cyber attacks can occur in a number of different ways. Your data could be targeted by hackers while it’s in transit, for instance, while a message is being sent from your computer to a work server. Alternatively, your data could be compromised by hackers directly on your device, through malware installed on your software. And the VPN servers which route our online activities are other important targets for hackers in gaining access to and exploiting user data.

As we will see, a VPN is really only effective in protecting your data while it is in transit. It cannot necessarily protect your device itself, nor can it stop data leaks from the VPN’s databases where user metadata is centrally logged. Moreover, a VPN cannot prevent the exploitation of any sensitive information you share online, for instance, with a social media account. Through new security architectures, innovative decentralized VPNs (dVPNs) and mixnet VPNs like NymVPN can help to mitigate this risk of data centralization. This is done by using a decentralized network with no central point of control and failure, and with the help of innovative routing designs.

To learn more about how VPNs work, check out our recent breakdown of how they can and can’t protect our online privacy.

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