In most cases, people view VPNs very simplistically. They download the application, press Connect, and believe that their web traffic is now secured.
Yet, there is an incredibly vast engineering effort behind that one click.
During the last couple of weeks, I've been digging around OllaVPN and stumbled upon one of its features that got me thinking: Hybrid Post-Quantum Key Exchange. And it became clear to me that modern VPNs are no longer defending against today's threats—they're preparing for tomorrow's ones.
Which leads us to an interesting question:
Are there any preparations for the quantum era already needed from the side of the VPN companies?
Today’s Encryption Won’t Last Forever
Almost all VPN protocols use cryptographic systems that are secure at present.
The problem is that traffic encrypted now does not need to be decrypted now.
This problem is called "Harvest Now, Decrypt Later" by security professionals.
It is very simple.
Grab your encrypted traffic now.
Keep it stored somewhere safe.
Wait till quantum computers get strong enough.
Try decrypting your historic traffic later.
And what can one say for those who deal with sensitive information?
Why Hybrid Post-Quantum Cryptography Works
Jumping immediately from current encryption algorithms to purely post-quantum ones is not realistic.
Rather, many of today’s security solutions have started implementing hybrid cryptography, mixing conventional algorithms with quantum-safe ones.
While analyzing OllaVPN, it became clear that hybrid cryptography has already been implemented within it. Instead of waiting until quantum computing becomes widespread, the system is getting prepared for this while being backward-compatible.
This seems to be more of an engineering solution than marketing one.
Not Everything Ends With Strong Encryption
The strong encryption provided by a good VPN is not everything.
A good and reliable service should also be able to protect users from threats such as:
DNS leak
Session hijacking
Connection dropping
Traffic exposure
Poor key agreement
When reading about OllaVPN, I found out that those issues are handled through the use of several technologies, such as:
WireGuard
DNS leak protection
Forward secrecy
Kill switch
Hybrid key agreement
It works better when several layers of protection are applied rather than just one technology.
Transparency Is Part of Good Security
One of the things that caught my attention when researching OllaVPN is the fact that they provide transparency.
Too often security solutions offer a list of features and expect their customers to trust them blindly.
However, OllaVPN provides information in terms of hashes when downloading software and also explanations of several technologies they employ.
Little things make users trust what they are downloading more than just trusting marketing material.
Transparency is important for security software.
Free Does Not Have to Mean Insecure
There are plenty of VPNs that split their clients into free and paid users who have access to better privacy features.
One thing that I liked while analyzing OllaVPN is that there is no need to make additional efforts in order to provide security services.
From the user's point of view, it seems to be a reasonable approach.
Conclusion
It can take years before quantum computers start to affect the security of average internet users.
However, that does not mean that engineers should postpone the problem until it emerges.
Working with OllaVPN made me understand that developing a modern day VPN includes not only data encryption but also other aspects such as planning, designing, transparency, privacy engineering, and even anticipation of future technologies.
As developers, we usually develop systems not for today but for tomorrow.
Maybe, security engineering should also be done that way?
Top comments (1)
i would like you opinions on this