VPNs are gaining strength due to privacy and data protection issues, in addition to being able to view geoblocked content. The idea of wanting to protect your identity is real, but a VPN is not the only thing you should do, nor are they invulnerable to attacks because with them we simply connect to the internet through another computer.
Because of this, it is possible for a VPN service to suffer an attack and thus leak data, as has happened to the VPN network of the parent company ActMobile Networks, which operates Dash VPN, FreeVPN.org, and Dash Net Accelerated VPN. among others. The data of millions of its users has been filtered among which is data that can identify them personally.
A large VPN suffers from a major security hole
Cybersecurity researchers have found an unprotected database of more than 100 GB in weight that contains more than 300 million records that include all kinds of personally identifiable information (PII) of the users of Actmobile Networks VPNs. The company has denied that this data comes from its customers.
In that leak are 45 million records that include user account details such as email addresses, full names and encrypted passwords. Then there are about 281 million records of information about users' devices, including IP address, country code, type of connection they use, device and user ID, and accelerator ID. Finally, there are six million purchase records, with details of the product purchased and receipts, but there are no credit cards or other information related to payment, so your banking information should not be compromised.
Following the denial, Comparitech took additional steps to verify the legitimacy of the data, after which it found that it did indeed belong to clients of ActMobile's VPN services. The data that has been leaked could lead to phishing and spoofing attacks, and it makes us see that a VPN is not the invulnerable security tool that many claim and that you can never have enough security.
Source: TechRadar
