Confused about which VPN is right, US senator asks the NSA for guidance
U.S. senators requested the National Security Agency (NSA) to provide public guidance on best practices for using Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) to prevent foreign adversaries from eavesdropping on communications. Although U.S. agencies have previously recommended the use of VPNs, they have never provided advice on which specific products offer sufficient protection. VPNs hide IP addresses and prevent interception by encrypting user internet traffic to remote servers, but their design has limitations: the encrypted tunnel usually terminates after a single decryption point, allowing malicious employees or hackers to steal the decrypted traffic or source and destination IP addresses. Additionally, VPNs cannot encrypt metadata such as timestamps, enabling national actors to create personal profiles for intelligence collection.