Malware, User Privacy Failures Found in Top Free VPN Android Apps

Minimalist · Jan 21, 2019

One in five apps from the top 150 free VPN Android apps in Google's Play Store was flagged as a potential source of malware, while a quarter of them come with user privacy breaking bugs such as DNS leaks which expose user DNS queries to their ISPs.

As found by Simon Migliano, Metric Labs' Head of Research, the company behind the Top10VPN service, these VPN Android applications have already been installed approximately 260 million times according to the numbers reported by Google's official store.
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https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/ne...-failures-found-in-top-free-vpn-android-apps/

Minimalist · Feb 13, 2019

That VPN may not be as secure as you think

Researchers found some subscription VPN services have programming errors that cause leaks, monitor user traffic, and lack privacy policies — all reasons to set up your own VPN server.
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https://www.networkworld.com/article/3340342/lan-wan/that-vpn-may-not-be-as-secure-as-you-think.html

guest · Mar 4, 2019

Some Android VPN apps request access to sensitive permissions they don't need
Some VPN apps request access to permissions they don't need
March 4, 2019
https://www.zdnet.com/article/some-...cess-to-sensitive-permissions-they-dont-need/

Some of the Android VPN apps available through the official Google Play Store request access to "dangerous" user permissions that a normal VPN app would have no use for, according to research viewed today by ZDNet.

According to Mason, 50 of the 81 Android VPN apps he tested requested access to at least one dangerous permission that accessed user data.
While many apps had legitimate uses for the permissions they requested, some apps requested access permissions that a VPN app wouldn't normally need.

"In theory, VPN apps should only need a few permissions to function. INTERNET and ACCESS_NETWORK_STATE should usually be enough," Mason told us. "The use of a large number of dangerous permissions could be cause for suspicion."
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Some of the biggest offender VPN apps are listed in the table below. This Google Docs spreadsheet includes a breakdown of every VPN app and the permissions it requested at the time of the tests. Mason's research will go live later today at this link.
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guest · Apr 9, 2020

Major vulnerabilities found in top free VPN apps on Google Play store
February 24, 2020
https://vpnpro.com/blog/major-vulnerabilities-found-in-top-free-vpn-apps/

SuperVPN Free VPN Client is one of the most popular free VPN apps you can find on the Google Play store, having gained more than 100 million installs already.

But besides being a very popular app, there’s something else you need to know about this free VPN: SuperVPN Free VPN Client is also very dangerous. You see, our analysis shows that this app has critical vulnerabilities that opens it up to dangerous attacks known as man-in-the-middle (MITM) hacks. These vulnerabilities will allow hackers to easily intercept all the communications between the user and the VPN provider, letting the hackers see everything the user is doing.

But what’s even worse is that this app isn’t alone: of the top VPN apps we analyzed, 10 free VPN apps have similar critical vulnerabilities. If you’ve installed any of these dangerous VPN apps, you should delete them immediately: [...]
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guest · Apr 9, 2020

mood said: ↑

Major vulnerabilities found in top free VPN apps on Google Play store February 24, 2020
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Updated (April 8, 2020):

Update (April 8): Google has removed the SuperVPN app from the Play store. You can read about it here.

Update (April 3): We shared our findings directly with Google through Google Play Security Reward Program – a vulnerability disclosure program on HackerOne, since we were unable to contact Super VPN’s developer directly. Google’s HackerOne program allows for disclosures of apps with more than 100 million downloads. On March 19, the team was able to confirm that the vulnerability was still present in the newest version of Super VPN.

We are currently working with Google to get in touch with the app developer to help fix the vulnerability. At this point, the app is still available on the Play store, gaining new installs every day and putting its users at risk.
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Google removes Android VPN with ‘critical vulnerability’ from Play Store
April 9, 2020
https://nakedsecurity.sophos.com/20...-with-critical-vulnerability-from-play-store/

Google has removed an Android VPN program from the Google Play store after researchers notified it of a critical vulnerability.

VPNpro, a company that reviews and advises on VPN products, warned in February of a vulnerability in the product that could cause a man in the middle (MITM) attack, enabling an intruder to insert themselves between the user and the VPN service.

What this VPN app has done is to leave its users, people seeking extra privacy and security, to actually have less privacy and security than if they’d used no VPN at all.
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