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Can a VPN server monitor or change my internet traffic

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Trudy edited this page Dec 8, 2021 · 5 revisions

Regardless of what VPN technology or software you use, A VPN server is like a router on your network.

  1. The VPN provider can see your data. If the data are not encrypted (i.e. HTTPS), the provider will be able to get to the exact text and will also be able to manipulate the data.
  2. IF the usual protections of HTTPS apply, i.e. the provider will see which site you visit but not the exact text data itself because they are encrypted. The provider will also not be able to modify the information undetected.
  3. If clients use DNSSEC, VPN servers and routers can not see domains (which site you visit), but unfortunately, DNSSEC is not widely used at the time of writing this text. VPN servers can always monitor destination IP.

Please note that even if a VPN server doesn't do the above, the hosting company that provides the machine that the VPN server runs on can do, but the machine hosting company can not distinguish the VPN users.

For example, if three people use a VPN server and someone open wikipedia.com, the VPN server hosting can see who is connected to Wikipedia, but it can't see which page he is visiting. The machine hosting company can also see the VPN machine opens Wikipedia, but it doesn't know who actually opens the Wikipedia.

NOTE: VpnHood Public Servers keep logs of IP activities (source and destination endpoints) for 30 days but does not try to extract domain accessed by client.

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