I also thought it would be good to list what programs tend to leak your IP. So does secure core serve the same purpose as running through a proxy/SOCK5 before connecting to the VPN. Step by step guide to Proton VPN on Linux Step by step guide to Proton VPN on MacOS Please note that not all countries can be connected to from all of our Secure Core locations. Tap on a country you wish the VPN to exit from, and then tap the on button next to the Secure Core country you want the connection to be routed through. Open the Proton VPN app and toggle the Secure Core switch on. Alternatively, you can click the ∨ dropdown button next to a country and choose a Secure Core server to route your connection through. Select a country and click Connect to connect to it via one of our Secure Core servers.
Open the Proton VPN app, click on the Secure Core button, and select Secure Core On. Secure Core is a feature available on all paid Proton VPN plans and can be activated as follows: Windows, macOS, and Linuxġ. While there is no such thing as 100% security, Secure Core is just one of the many ways Proton VPN delivers better security and privacy by protecting against complex attacks other VPNs cannot defend against. These measures provide us with a much higher level of certainty that no one has tampered with our Secure Core servers. Finally, Secure Core servers are connected to the Internet using our own dedicated network with IP addresses that are owned and operated by our own Local Internet Registry (LIR). Furthermore, Secure Core servers are wholly owned and provisioned by us (shipped on-site directly from our offices). Proton VPN infrastructure in Switzerland and Sweden is housed in underground data centers, while our Iceland servers are on a former military base. We also placed our Secure Core servers in high-security data centers to ensure strong physical security. First, servers are located in countries selected specifically for their strong privacy laws (Iceland, Switzerland, and Sweden). We have also gone to extraordinary lengths to defend our Secure Core servers. Therefore, even if an attacker monitors our servers in the US, they would only be able to follow the traffic back to the edge of our Secure Core network, thus making it far more difficult to discover the true IP address and location of Proton VPN users. When you connect to a server in a high-risk jurisdiction like the US, your traffic will first go through our Secure Core servers. Secure Core allows us to defend against this threat to VPN privacy by passing user traffic through multiple servers. How does Secure Core increase VPN privacy?
Therefore, even though Proton VPN is based in Switzerland, we cannot be certain that authorities are not monitoring our VPN servers located in those high-risk countries. In countries with restrictive Internet regulations (China, Russia, Iran, Turkey, etc), or countries with broad surveillance powers (USA, UK, etc), state surveillance agencies typically have the legal ability to coerce either the VPN provider, or the network/server provider of the VPN provider, to assist with such network monitoring. Such timing/correlation attacks are not difficult to accomplish.
If an attacker can get control of the VPN server, or monitor the network of the server, they will be able to match VPN clients with their traffic, nullifying the privacy benefits of the VPN. A classic VPN setup involves a client passing traffic through a VPN server en-route to the final destination. Proton VPN’s unique Secure Core architecture allows us to protect our users from network attacks that other VPNs cannot defend against. This article provides an overview of the attacks and threats that Secure Core mitigates, how it achieves higher VPN privacy, as well as instructions on how to activate Secure Core in Proton VPN. To mitigate this risk, Proton VPN has Secure Core servers. This risk is particularly acute for servers located in high-risk jurisdictions. Proton VPN has a Secure Core feature that improves user privacy and data security by mitigating some of the risks from a compromised VPN server.Ī common method to expose VPN traffic is to compromise the server that handles your traffic.