VPN over public wifi

Bluecube · 13 Feb 2016 at 09:47

I use OpenVPN to connect to my home network when I'm out and about. Does using a VPN connection ensure you have a safe net connection to use for, say, online banking? Was just about to log in and had an attack of the doubts.

Steveocee · 13 Feb 2016 at 10:32

Yep, best way to do it if you have to use public wifi.

Avalon · 13 Feb 2016 at 13:40

As above if using public or un-trusted wifi then VPN is the best option.

joeyjojo · 13 Feb 2016 at 14:52

HTTPS connections are secure either way. A VPN will make it hard to sniff any unencrypted traffic.

Bluecube · 14 Feb 2016 at 08:10

Thanks folks.

Uhtred · 15 Feb 2016 at 02:20

Depends how you have your vpn configured. It's possible yours is set to be 'split tunnel' which means Internet bound traffic goes out via the public wifi gateway still and only traffic routing to your local network goes over the VPN.

As pointed out, HTTPS is perfectly safe. At best anyone snooping would know that you were using a banking site but not able to make sense of the content.

meandu229 · 15 Feb 2016 at 12:28

Uhtred said:
Depends how you have your vpn configured. It's possible yours is set to be 'split tunnel' which means Internet bound traffic goes out via the public wifi gateway still and only traffic routing to your local network goes over the VPN.

As pointed out, HTTPS is perfectly safe. At best anyone snooping would know that you were using a banking site but not able to make sense of the content.

Basically this a good way to check your internet is going via your vpn is to just check your ip address using whatsmyip or similar.
Only thing you would have to watch out for is if you went to say http://www.natwest.com (ie not https) this can be spoofed and look like the real thing but be colllecting your data.
However https://www.natwest.com if it was spoofed the certificate would not match and your browser would pop up and say this is an unsecure site or something similar (or just not work).