Enhancing Data Protection Provided by VPN Connections over Open WiFi Networks

Abstract

Open Wi-Fi networks are a serious challenge to sensitive and private data because it is hard to know who else is using the network and monitoring traffic. Such open, free and unencrypted networks might allow an adversary to hack devices connected to them making the use of such networks highly risky and harmful. In order to use these public networks securly, it is recommended to use VPN in Tunneling Mode to assure that the data is encrypted during transmission. But this is not enough as most of today's smart devices and laptops run applications that might start communicating with their servers before this VPN has been established. In this work, we solve this problem by creating a device that enables users to access the internet securely over Public Wi-Fi networks and provides security right from the beginning when deployed between the public Wi-Fi and the user's personal devices. Experiments show the security advantages of our solution.