Understanding VPNs: A Quick Overview

A virtual private network (VPN), describes the opportunity to establish a protected network connection when using public networks. VPNs encrypt your internet traffic and disguise your online identity. VPNs enable users to send and receive data across shared or public networks as if their computing devices were directly connected to the private server geolocated in a different position, becoming a crosser to your network traffic.

What does that mean? It means that you are surfing the web more securely and leaving fewer traces, since your data has been encrypted before reaching the internet, which is usually described as a ‘tunneling process’.

How does it work?

To connect to the internet through a VPN tunnel, you’ll first have to sign up with the help of a virtual private network service. The key is to hide your IP address and shield your online activity from snoops. Your VPN provider builts a tunnel around your online activity, providing a barrier between it and everyone else.

But using a VPN alone may not be enough to protect your online privacy, though. That’s why VPN providers step up and encrypt the data you send and receive while you are online. That way they won’t be able to track what websites you visit, the files you download, videos you stream, or online games you play. When your data is encrypted, it is scrambled so snoops can’t intercept and decipher it. However, you should be aware of the VPN Server has a no-log policy. This means, don’t save any data from your traffic.

VPN tunnel protocols

Not all VPN tunnels are equally effective in protecting your online privacy. The strength of a tunnel depends on the type of tunneling protocol your VPN provider uses.

Some protocols are outdated and may not provide data encryption that is strong enough to deter online snoops, so it’s a good idea for you to work with a VPN provider that relies on the strongest possible tunneling protocol.

99% of the internet nowadays has an encrypted layer. The ”S” from HTPPS? It stands for ”Secure Sockets Layer(SSL)”.

PPTP

Point to Point Tunneling Protocol is one of the oldest versions still in use today. The strength of this protocol is its speed. It features extremely fast connection speeds but the cost of this speed comes from the level of encryption, being weak by today’s standards.

L2TP/IPSec

Layer 2 Tunneling Protocol, when used with Internet Protocol Security, is a step up from basic PPTP. That’s because this level of tunneling protocol offers two stages of protection: both the L2TP and IPSec portions of this protocol create their own 256-bit encryption. This results in two layers of protection for your online data.

The downside? This type of tunneling protocol, because of the two layers of encryption, can result in slower online connection speeds. L2TP/IPSec sometimes gets blocked by firewalls too. That’s because this type of VPN tunneling uses fixed ports.

SSTP

Secure Socket Tunneling Protocol is unusual because it is only available on Windows operating systems. This type of tunneling protocol is very secure, making it a safe choice. It also doesn’t use fixed ports, so it’s easier for SSTP to get through firewalls.

OpenVPN

This protocol works with all the major operating systems, Linux, Windows, and Mac, as well as mobile operating systems (Android and iOS).

OpenVPN is currently considered the top form of VPN tunneling protocol. That’s because its encryption is especially strong. It’s also adept at getting past firewalls and you can build your own VPN according to your needs.

Types of Encryption Algorithms

When discussing VPN encryption types, it’s important to make the difference between encryption algorithm types and encryption cipher types. Right now, we’ll be discussing the algorithms types, and we’ll go over ciphers in the next section.

Nowadays, encryption algorithms generally fall into two categories:

●  Symmetric Encryption – Asymmetrical encryption algorithm relies on a Public and Private Key that are identical. It’s usually considered a “fast” algorithm. One example of symmetric encryption is the AES encryption cipher.

●  Asymmetric Encryption – This type of algorithm (also known as Public-Key Cryptography) uses different keys for the encryption and decryption processes. While it can be convenient, it’s also very risky since a Private Key that is lost can normally not be restored. A good example of asymmetric encryption is the RSA (Rivest-Shamir-Adleman) protocol.

What Are Encryption Keys?

A VPN encryption key is a randomly-generated string of bits that are used to encrypt and decrypt data. Each encryption key is generated in such a way as to ensure it’s unique. The length of an encryption key is calculated in bits – normally, the longer the key, the stronger the encryption.

The size of encryption keys is very varied. For example, they can be 1-bit, allowing for just two possible combinations, or 256-bit, allowing for a total of 1.1 times 10^77 combinations. To give you an idea of what that means, it’d take a supercomputer around 885 quadrillion years just to brute force a 128-bit encryption key.

Two types of encryption keys are used in the encryption/decryption process – the Private Key and the Public Key. They are mathematically related, as any kind of information that is encrypted with a Public Key can only be decrypted with the Private Key associated with it. Also, the Public Key is normally available through a public directory, while the Private Key (like its name implies) remains confidential and is only known by the key owner.

Of course, there are multiples types of VPNs nowadays, this little introduction was meant to give you some basic knowledge about security, privacy, and speed. By scratching the surface of the matter, hopefully, you will find one that fits your necessities.

Want to know more about security and VPNs?
This video gives you a different perspective about VPNs and a lot more information to start your journey on, enjoy.

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