Can Someone Actually Hack into a VPN? By encrypting your data and using private DNS servers, VPNs are one of the most effective means of maintaining online privacy. Nevertheless, it’s important to note that anything can be hacked. This is especially true if you are a high-value target and your adversary has enough time, funds, and resources. The good news is that most users do not fall into the “high-value” category and are therefore unlikely to be singled out.
Hacking into a VPN connection involves one of two tactics. A hacker can either break the encryption through known vulnerabilities or steal the key through unethical means. Cryptographic attacks are used by hackers and cryptanalysts to recover plain text from their encrypted versions without the key. However, breaking encryption is computationally demanding and time-consuming.It can take strong computers years to actually break the encryption. Quantum era computing will be able to do it in minutes if not seconds.
Quantum Computers will change the very nature of data and subsequently data security
Instead, most attacks tend to involve stealing the keys. Spy agencies, for example, generally prefer this method over the complex task of breaking encryption. Given that the math behind encryption is computationally complex, stealing a key is a far easier task. Success comes from a combination of technical trickery, computing power, cheating, court orders, and behind-the-scenes persuasion. Edward Snowden for example, revealed that the US spy agency, the NSA, did crack the encryption protecting a large amount of internet traffic, including VPNs. The NSA’s VPN decryption infrastructure involved intercepting encrypted traffic and passing some data to powerful computers. The computers would then return the key.
Their success was based on the exploitation of a weakness in a common implementation of the Diffie-Hellman algorithm. The root cause of this weakness stems from the prime number used to implement the encryption. The researchers estimated it would take about a year and a few 100M dollars to build a powerful computer that would be able to crack a single 1024 bit Diffie-Hellman prime. This is a cost the NSA can afford, but it wouldn’t be enough to decrypt the multiple encryption keys that secure millions of websites and VPNs.
Unfortunately, researchers have found that only a few prime numbers are commonly used for 1024-bit encryption. This includes applications such as VPNs, and therefore, makes it even easier to break.
VPN’s don’t need their encryption to be compromised to make your connection vulnerable. One of the simplest ways your data can be revealed to an outside party is via VPN leaks. Most frequently, this involves an IP leak. In the process of transmitting your data, your browser may still leak your real IP address. This alone may not provide access to your traffic data immediately, but they can trace your location.
Sometimes, however, your traffic can leak while using a VPN, which would let your ISP know exactly what you’re viewing. Not only that, they’ll know who viewed it. You can also fall victim to DNS leaks.
When Quantum Computing becomes mainstream, VPN’s will essentially be useless due to their foundation in RSA encryption.
The current security of RSA key encryption is based on the premise of creating an impossibly hard problem by factoring very large numbers. Although there are algorithms that can do so, the amount of computing power necessary is immense and easily increased – the effort to break the key grows nearly exponentially with the key size.
This concept that encryption will always remain ahead of the ability to build supercomputers with more and more separate cores operating in parallel and capable of decryption does not apply to quantum computers where the parallelism is effectively increased within the processor. Powerful quantum computers will be able to defeat current RSA encryption relatively easily. It has already been demonstrated that with quantum computers, factorization and discrete logarithms can be solved in polynomial time. A quantum computer can use its inbuilt parallelism to drastically reduce the time taken to crack the key. For example, adding a couple of more digits won’t help as RSA-3072 will be as easily defeated as a 2048 key.
In finding a suitable post-quantum encryption standard, it is useful to consider that the security of RSA encryption is based on two elements: the difficulty of the mathematical problem (factoring large numbers) that needs to be solved, and the assumed lack of any algorithm or method that can solve the problem with current classical computer technology. The quantum threat comes from the increase in computing power together with the existence of an algorithm that can harness that power to solve the problem: both parts are necessary.
What we at BLAKFX understand better than anyone else is the new era of data security is one that requires new solutions. The era of perimeter defenses is over as it is proving impossible to keep hackers from breaching the perimeter and accessing data. E2E encryption based on old models of RSA cryptography will be obsolete when quantum computing becomes mainstream.
Our Motto
In Math We Trust
Review Helix22 API, examples and documentation on our GIT
Helix22 delivers perfect security assurance due to our genius engineering team that has invented a new model for data security that required an innovative look at the problem. The approach we took was to protect the data itself. Almost all other data security products try to build a perimeter or being fanatic on user credentials. However, once the product is breached or a password is stolen, even if it is 2FA or encrypted, your firms data is in the clear.
You see, the Helix22 cryptography is embedded with the data itself through our inventive and patented process of DNA BindingTM. Therefore, even if credentials are stolen the data cannot be exfiltrated. This means that all data is 100% protected regardless of the type of attack.
Another substantial advantage of Helix22, is that it protects all data whether at rest, in use or in transit. All communication apps for example, only encrypt data while in transit. Therefore, that encryption become useless for internal IT security or Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning experimentation. All data generated during these massive computing exercises is equally protected in real time. Plus, the latency period for the Helix22 is exponentially less than any other security product, so it actually contributes to faster processing times.
In this protocol, we are truly a “zero-knowledge” server so your private communications and transmissions remain completely top secret. Even in the event that BLAKFX were subpoenaed, we can honor the request by just handing over the encrypted content…as that is literally all we have. Helix22 also only use keys just one-time and then destroys them. This way the data security is future forward prefect. Therefore, in our unique user-to-user encryption (U2U) world, there is no opportunity ever for any data leak.
The Helix22 data security SDK accomplishes the following:
- Protects all your firms data at rest, in use and in transit
- Renders ransomware threats obsolete
- Eliminates human error
- Eliminates all malicious or interior attacks
- Verifies original content i.e. minimizes the threat of impersonation attacks and deep fakes
- Delivers ultra low latency
- Installs with 5 lines of code
- Runs on any platform, network, device and in any programming language
- Provides perfect future/forward secrecy
- Delivers “zero-knowledge” encryption
- Compatible with all cloud, 3rd party and vendor services
- Is quantum ready – so there’s no need to upgrade when the time comes
- Requires no employee training
- Exceeds all gov’t and banking standards
- Meets compliance regulations
U2U/D2D encryption
We can make these claims as the tech engineers at BLAKFX invented and patented a genuine user2user (U2U) or device2device (D2D) encryption. We manage data security transmission through the truly brilliant and also patented universal Helix22 key service. The Helix22 encryption originates on your network or device, not just when the app is opened. This means, that when data arrives to our key server, it is already encrypted so all it needs to do is issue another key. Signal and Telegram cannot claim this level of security. This key will then only work with the intended device, which generates a matching key required to open the data. In this protocol, we are truly a “zero-knowledge” server so your communications and transmissions remain completely top secret. Even in the event that BLAKFX were subpoenaed, we can honor the request by just handing over the encrypted content…as that is literally all we have. Helix22 also only use keys just one-time and then destroys them. This way the data security is future forward prefect. Therefore, in our unique user-to-user encryption (U2U) or device-to-device (D2D) world, there is no opportunity at all for any data leak.
This same protocol just described, can be the same with all your 3rd party vendors and suppliers. It does not matter in the least what platform they are running or what device they are using or even the type of data, it is all 100% protected. We do however, strongly require that all firms involved be utilizing Helix22 due to the nature of the data content. Helix22 can ensure that whatever data they are generating is protected as well. This methodology ensures your supply chain is 100% secure.
Let’s take it a step further. Even if your organization were a victim of an internal attack, a victim of malicious open source downloads or perhaps even the target of nefarious espionage efforts, there is no reason for concern. Any data that has been forwarded, downloaded, copied or saved cannot be exfiltrated. Period. We have the technology industries foremost data packets which are protected with multi-layered, military grade encryption algorithms that have already proven the ability to withstand penetration testing from MI5 and quantum computing attacks.
One final practical genius of DNA BindingTM is that it is immediately compatible with whichever system or software you are utilizing. Helix22 is platform agnostic and runs on any system, network, device and in any programming language. Therefore, any organization or government can install Helix22 regardless of the state of their overall IT capabilities. or, limitations.
BLAKFX is Based on Success
Our founders, Robert Statica PhD and Kara Coppa, also founded Wickr, which is used by the US military and has never been hacked since its inception in 2012. The Helix22 data security SDK is several generations enhanced since then. Dr. Statica also delivered the encryption for the world’s most secure phone, Katim.
Founder – Robert Statica PhD Founder – Kara Coppa Founder – Alex Maslov MS, MBA
Co-Founders of Wickr KatimTM Ultra Secure Smartphone
Finally, the Helix22 encryption is quantum computing ready so no need to redo all your data security methodologies in a couple of years when everything else becomes obsolete.
We like to refer to Helix22 as “22nd Century Data Security.”
Helix22 – Zero Risk