Research security issues in VPN technology
S. M. Bayramova, Ibrokhim B. Sapaev, Z. Niyozov, U. T. Davlatov · 2025
A number of threats on the Internet is growing daily basis. Nowadays, antivirus solutions are no longer able to provide complete security. Studies show that in the last 2–3 years, most of the threats come through e-mail, and some of them cause material and moral damage to large companies. This article discusses research into attacks on VPN technologies and the environment in which they are used. Virtual Private Networks (VPN) gives anonymity and online security whilst using the web by creating a private network from our public internet connection. VPNs cloak Internet Protocol addresses such that our online activities cannot be traced. Initially, VPNs were only being utilized by huge corporate organizations, which could bear its cost, to safely and privately share records between workplaces situated in various parts of the world. Currently in 2020, now over a quarter of the world’s population uses VPN to access the internet anonymously. This paper presents an introduction to VPN technology, its working, its types, some of the VPN Protocols, comparison between free and paid VPN services, and security issues associated with VPN use. VPN is primarily used to encrypt your network traffic and identity online securely from a private location. This can be used as a safety measure to prevent theft of personal data. It also allows its user to change the geolocation to wherever they want which unlocks the possibility to use another country’s services. Related work has shown that there are also downsides to using VPN services. Some VPN solutions do have security problems that its user could be unaware of. This study explored the experience and beliefs surrounding the usage of VPN while browsing the internet from people with software expertise. Interviews were conducted with people in different areas surrounding usage of VPN services to get a deeper understanding of why VPN is used and to what extent they believe VPN is providing anonymity and security of their data. The findings from this study is that the main reason to use a VPN is to access unavailable services. These services can vary from content online that is not available in the region from where you access the internet to services that are work related and locked to specific networks. Another finding was also that among these people the belief that the use of a VPN was enough to make a user anonymous by itself is controversial.