In this article, we will understand how a VPN works. It doesn’t matter whether you are at work in the office, on the road, in a cafe or airport, or relaxing over a cup of warm tea and a good movie at home, virtual private networks – VPNs are your best protection on the Internet today.
This technology has earned itself a reputation as a reliable bulwark of defense that most of today’s online threats are unable to cope with. However, how does a VPN work? Why is it so effective? Let’s try to answer these questions.
What is VPN?
VPN stands for Virtual Private Network. As the name suggests, this service provides users with a private virtual network for secure and confidential connection and subsequent work on the Internet.
The main goal of a VPN is to keep your personal information secret from unauthorized and unwanted persons.
How VPN works – basic principle of operation
A virtual private network (VPN) relies on routing your device’s Internet connection through a pre-selected VPN virtual server rather than through your Internet Service Provider (ISP). With an active virtual access service, outgoing data is transmitted to cyberspace through a VPN, and not through your computer or mobile device.
VPN takes on the role of your intermediary for the Internet. It hides your IP address – a unique number that the provider assigns to your device, almost completely anonymizing and, as a result, reliably protecting your personal information. If, however, your data is somehow intercepted, the attackers will not be able to decrypt and use it for personal gain, since they will be unreadable.
We can say that VPN creates a secure “tunnel” between your device and the global Internet, while hiding all vital and valuable data using advanced encryption and encryption algorithms.
How does VPN and encryption work?
Encryption is a term used to describe the procedure that all of your data goes through as it passes through a VPN.
The virtual private network encodes information in such a way (turning it into “gibberish” unreadable by the human eye) that it cannot be processed without a strong password-key, and therefore cannot be of any value to fraudsters.
This key, in fact, opens a specialized complex code with which your data was disguised. The required key is initially known only to the VPN provider and your computer.
The process of decoding user data in a VPN is also called decryption. In simple terms, this is a procedure for reading back encrypted information using an encryption key.
As an illustrative example, we can give a situation in which you enter your bank card details to make a purchase in an online store.
The information you send is encrypted and becomes unreadable for third parties until it reaches its final destination, that is, the server on which the online store is located.
Different VPN providers use their own proprietary encryption algorithms. If you want to get a closer look at how data encryption works in VPNs in practice, take a look at the CyberGhost VPN trial version. Especially for those who have never used a VPN before, the developer of this software has simplified the settings – the entire installation can be done in a couple of mouse clicks.
If we describe the general principle of encryption in VPN, then we can talk about the following features:
- When you connect to a VPN, everything sent by your browser (or any other application) is called and passed through a secure tunnel.
This means that all information coming from you is converted into unreadable code that moves between your computer and the remote virtual server.
- Now your computer or mobile gadget, from the point of view of the external Internet, will be perceived as a device located in the same local network as your chosen VPN.
So your IP address will actually be the IP address of one of the VPN provider’s servers.
- You can surf the web or use various online services as you see fit, knowing that a VPN acts as an additional security barrier, protecting your personal information from hackers.
How effectively your data is encrypted depends on the protocols of the VPN provider’s encryption mechanism. They are one of the main components of the work of a virtual private network. Of course, to fully understand how a VPN works, it is worth taking a closer look at the types of protocols used by modern software developers.
How VPN Works – Virtual Private Networking Protocols
VPN, generally understood, is a technology used by a virtual access service to provide the fastest and most secure Internet connection possible.
By combining the current international encryption standards and information transfer protocols, the VPN protocol defines the principle and order of how data is transferred from your computer to a virtual server.
The most efficient and reliable VPN protocols today are:
- PPTP – Point-to-Point Tunneling Protocol.
Created by digital giant Microsoft, it is one of the oldest protocols in use on the Internet today. It is only really useful if you use it on Windows (and in older versions), while it is fast and easy to deploy. However, if a VPN provider bases its service on this protocol, it is unlikely to be trusted. In terms of online security, this protocol is relatively outdated.
- L2TP / IPSec – Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol.
L2TP protocol is a combination of the previously mentioned PPTP and L2F protocol developed by Cisco Systems. L2TP is capable of creating a more secure tunnel for the transmission of encrypted data than PPTP, however, in reality, it does not always meet modern encryption and online privacy standards. As such, it often comes bundled with IPSec, which is an additional security protocol.
- SSTP – Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol.
This protocol is another development from Microsoft, while being one of the most secure solutions for a long time. The high level of reliability of this protocol is explained by its secrecy from external influences – only two parties involved in the transfer of data (in this case, the VPN provider and its client) can decode them.
- IKEv2 – Secure Internet Key Exchange.
The recently launched cybersecurity solution is an improved and more reliable version of the L2TP protocol. This protocol is the first joint brainchild of digital security sharks such as Cisco and Microsoft. Similar to L2TP, IKEv2 is also preferred over IPSec. The target audience of this protocol is the owners of mobile devices who want to get access to the VPN capabilities.
- OpenVPN
It is an open source virtual access technology that is considered the most promising of all existing solutions today. OpenVPN is currently one of the most rapidly evolving security protocols and will become the basis for a large number of cybersecurity developments in the not too distant future.
We hope that we were quite clearly able to convey to you the essence of the VPN technology and clearly explained why this technology is the basis of the online security of any modern Internet user. Now you know how a VPN works, and how it ensures the privacy of your data and protection when using the Internet connection.
Computer security or other device connected to the network is extremely important in our time. Your payment and personal confidential data must be protected so that attackers cannot use it for illegal purposes. We recommend that you take care of configuring device security in advance.
