There’s no doubt about it: picking a reputable VPN provider will make your online activities a lot more secure, and much harder to spy on.
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How do VPNs work?
When you activate a VPN client, all of your internet traffic is encrypted and routed via the VPN gateway. Your ISP – or whoever’s providing your internet connection – will see that you’re connected to a VPN provider, but they won’t know which websites or services you’re accessing. Similarly, the sites you visit won’t know where you’re connecting from – to them, your traffic will appear to originate from the VPN provider.
That doesn’t necessarily mean you’re completely anonymous. The VPN provider itself may well be keeping some record of your activity: at the very least, if you’re paying for the service, they’ll have your account and payment details. Even if they don’t keep records of the sites you visit, they may still have logs of the times you connected and the internet address you came from, which could be used to link you with certain activity on a remote server.
Why the location of your VPN provider matters
VPN providers aim to protect your privacy, but they’re still subject to the law. If their service gets caught up in a criminal investigation, they can be compelled by a court order to turn over whatever records they have.
And simply choosing a VPN that’s based in another country won’t necessarily protect you. The UK has extensive information-sharing agreements with Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States – the so-called “Five Eyes” – which enable the British authorities to easily access data held by any of those countries. You can make life a little harder for them by choosing a VPN based in a more exotic jurisdiction, but even outside of the Five Eyes, intelligence-sharing between nations is commonplace.
There’s also a certain risk of exposure due to bugs and hack attacks. In 2015, a vulnerability called “Port Fail” was discovered, which made it possible for another VPN user to spy on your connection. Then, last year, it emerged that some VPN systems were correctly encrypting IPv4 traffic but neglecting to re-route IPv6 connections, potentially allowing ISPs to see which sites were being accessed. These vulnerabilities should now have been fixed, but other holes may well be discovered in the future, which could be exploited by nefarious hackers or government spies.
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Get a VPN that has a “kill switch”
A final issue worth considering is whether your chosen VPN features a “kill switch”, to automatically block all internet access when the encrypted connection drops. If you don’t have such a feature, there’s a risk that, when you disconnect from the VPN, your PC could try to reconnect to open sites and services via your ISP, exposing your activity.
Verdict
A VPN remains a sensible, practical option. Breaches are very rare, and unless you’re involved in high-stakes criminal activity, it’s extremely unlikely you’ll be singled out for a court order or a hacking attack.
Our best advice is to pick a big, established VPN provider, and make sure you check the terms of service and privacy policy so you understand what’s logged and what isn’t. After all, if a major VPN provider lets its users down, it has everything to lose – so it has every incentive to provide the best possible level of security and privacy.
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