What does a VPN do? In plain simple words, a VPN will provide you the much sought after anonymity when surfing the web. While VPNs have more advanced features as well, those are seldom put to use as compared to anonymous web surfing.
VPNs do so by using various methods and the most effective one among these is location cloaking. You may be sitting in the UK but with a VPN, you can connect to one of its servers that will show your current location in USA.
Imagine your shock when you read a news that says VPNs have allegedly done exactly the opposite of what they were supposed to do, and that is leak terabytes of private user data. In all, the names of seven VPN providers have come forth so far.
The leaked information is also believed to contain sensitive user data such as stored passwords. The majority of VPN providers involved denied the incident altogether, while some acknowledged the issue only to the extent that the same had been fixed.
The good news is that among these allegedly affected VPNs, no big name in the VPN industry is so far affected. Perhaps the decision of some users to stick with established industry names has paid off.
It is estimated that private browsing data of nearly 20 million users has been exposed in the process. This leaked data can be used by miscreants for phishing, fraud, blackmail, and many other forms of cybercrime.
The latest breach is yet another stark reminder of how exposed we all are over the present day cyber space. Whether your VPN is included in the list or otherwise, it’s best you adopt a proactive approach to the whole process.
Users who have even the slightest chance of being affected by this data breach are strongly urged to update their user passwords across various platforms. This breach also reminds us not to go for totally free or nearly free VPN solutions altogether.
