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Technology

VPNs could be vulnerable to attacks that send you to fake websites

By Chris Stokel-Walker

17 August 2021

VPN

Virtual private networks are designed to keep people safe online

Andrey Suslov/Shutterstock

Virtual private networks (VPNs), which have seen a rise in use as more people work from home, are vulnerable to an attack that removes the anonymity they grant users, researchers have found.

VPNs work by rerouting your internet traffic through a virtual tunnel that encrypts all data that passes through it and disguises your IP (or internet protocol) address, which is used to identify from where you access the internet. They are often used to access internal networks remotely, such as…

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