• Home
  • News
  • Business
  • Gear
  • Reviews
  • Games
  • Science
  • Security
Reading: iOS Can Stop VPNs From Working as Expected—and Expose Your Data
Share
Ad image
Technology MagazineTechnology Magazine
Aa
  • News
  • Business
  • Gear
  • Reviews
  • Games
  • Science
  • Security
Search
  • Home
  • News
  • Business
  • Gear
  • Reviews
  • Games
  • Science
  • Security
Have an existing account? Sign In
Follow US
Technology Magazine > Security > iOS Can Stop VPNs From Working as Expected—and Expose Your Data
Security

iOS Can Stop VPNs From Working as Expected—and Expose Your Data

Press room
Press room Published August 19, 2022
Last updated: 2022/08/19 at 2:54 PM
Share
SHARE

A security researcher says that Apple’s iOS devices don’t fully route all network traffic through VPNs as a user might expect, a potential security issue the device maker has known about for years.

Michael Horowitz, a longtime computer security blogger and researcher, puts it plainly—if contentiously—in a continually updated blog post. “VPNs on iOS are broken,” he says.

Any third-party VPN seems to work at first, giving the device a new IP address, DNS servers, and a tunnel for new traffic, Horowitz writes. But sessions and connections established before a VPN is activated do not terminate and, in Horowitz’s findings with advanced router logging, can still send data outside the VPN tunnel while it’s active.

In other words, you might expect a VPN client to kill existing connections before establishing a secure connection so they can be reestablished inside the tunnel. But iOS VPNs can’t seem to do this, Horowitz says, a finding that is backed up by a similar report from May 2020.

“Data leaves the iOS device outside of the VPN tunnel,” Horowitz writes. “This is not a classic/legacy DNS leak, it is a data leak. I confirmed this using multiple types of VPN and software from multiple VPN providers. The latest version of iOS that I tested with is 15.6.”

Privacy company Proton previously reported an iOS VPN bypass vulnerability that started at least in iOS 13.3.1. Like Horowitz’s post, ProtonVPN’s blog noted that a VPN typically closes all existing connections and reopens them inside a VPN tunnel, but that didn’t happen on iOS. Most existing connections will eventually end up inside the tunnel, but some, like Apple’s push notification service, can last for hours.

The primary issue with non-tunneled connections persisting is that they could be unencrypted and that the IP address of the user and what they’re connecting to can be seen by ISPs and other parties. “Those at highest risk because of this security flaw are people in countries where surveillance and civil rights abuses are common,” ProtonVPN wrote at the time. That might not be a pressing concern for typical VPN users, but it’s notable.

ProtonVPN confirmed that the VPN bypass persisted in three subsequent updates to iOS 13. ProtonVPN indicated in its blog post that Apple would add functionality to block existing connections, but this functionality as added did not appear to make a difference in Horowitz’s results.

Horowitz tested ProtonVPN’s app in mid-2022 on an iPad iOS 15.4.1 and found that it still allowed persistent, non-tunneled connections to Apple’s push service. The Kill Switch function added to ProtonVPN, which describes its function as blocking all network traffic if the VPN tunnel is lost, did not prevent leaks, according to Horowitz.

Horowitz tested again on iOS 15.5 with a different VPN provider and iOS app (OVPN, running the WireGuard protocol). His iPad continued to make requests to both Apple services and to Amazon Web Services.

ProtonVPN had suggested a workaround that was “almost as effective” as manually closing all connections when starting a VPN: Connect to a VPN server, turn on airplane mode, then turn it off. “Your other connections should also reconnect inside the VPN tunnel, though we cannot guarantee this 100%,” ProtonVPN wrote. Horowitz suggests that iOS’s Airplane Mode functions are so confusing as to make this a non-answer.

Ars Technica reached out to both Apple and OpenVPN for comment and will update this article with any responses.

Horowitz’s post doesn’t offer specifics on how iOS might fix the issue. He also doesn’t address VPNs that offer “split tunneling,” focusing instead on the promise of a VPN capturing all network traffic. For his part, Horowitz recommends a $130 dedicated VPN router as a truly secure VPN solution.

VPNs, especially commercial offerings, continue to be a complicated piece of internet security and privacy. Picking a “best VPN” has long been a challenge. VPNs can be brought down by vulnerabilities, unencrypted servers, greedy data brokers, or by being owned by Facebook.

This story originally appeared on Ars Technica.

Press room August 19, 2022
Share this Article
Facebook TwitterEmail Print
What do you think?
Love0
Sad0
Happy0
Sleepy0
Angry0
Dead0
Wink0
Leave a comment

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You Might Also Like

Security

The Uniquely American Future of US Authoritarianism

5 Min Read
Security

India Shut Down Cell Service for 27 Million During a Manhunt

6 Min Read
Security

The TikTok Hearing Revealed That Congress Is the Problem

4 Min Read
Security

TikTok Paid for Influencers to Attend the Pro-TikTok Rally in DC

4 Min Read
  • Review
  • Top Lists
  • Contact
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of use

We influence 20 million users and is the number one business and technology news network on the planet.

I have read and agree to the terms & conditions

Contact US

  • Contact Us
  • DMCA
  • Editorial Policy
  • Advertise

Quick Link

  • Gear
  • Games
  • Security
  • Reviews

© 2022 Technology Magazine. All Rights Reserved.

Follow US on Socials

Removed from reading list

Undo
Welcome Back!

Sign in to your account

Lost your password?