DNS Requests Check
What is DNS Leak?
A DNS leak is a security aberration that occurs when requests are sent to an ISP's DNS servers despite using a VPN to protect your online activities. This leak occurs when your DNS requests move outside the encrypted tunnel and become visible to their ISP.
This makes all your browsing activities, your IP address, location, and web searches go through the ISP as if you were not using a VPN.
DNS Leak V.S. IP Leak
IP Leak
In an IP leak, it’s your IP address that gets exposed when a skilled user takes advantage of an existing program found in some browsers. The essence is to reveal your IP address through coding using a platform known as STUN.
The platform is a special server that allows equipment that’s on the same network you’re in to expose your IP address. It depends totally on how the skill user can manipulate the WebRTC platform through a STUN server.
DNS Leak
The standard of your VPN determines if you must feel serious concern about a DNS leak. You can deal with a DNS leak through a dedicated DNS server. To protect yourself from privacy issues in a DNS leak, you need a service provider that does not keep logs of your browsing history. Unlike IP leaks, a DNS leak will be directly affected by both your security measures and the strength of your VPN service.
What causes a DNS Leak?
Without the proper settings when you are connecting to any new network, the DHCP settings can automatically assign a DNS server to handle your lookup requests which may belong to the ISP or are not properly secured. Even with a VPN on your network, any DNS request bypasses the encrypted tunnel, causing a DNS leak.
Also, the transition phase between IPv4 and IPv6 is creating a lot of problems, especially for VPNs that don’t have IPv6 support, requests to or from your machine sent over IPv6 will completely bypass the VPN tunnel, leaving your personal data unprotected and causing DNS leaks.
Some ISPs use a transparent proxy to intercept and redirect your traffic if you attempt to use a third-party server, which will lead to a DNS leak. The “Smart Multi-Homed Name Resolution” feature, increases cases of DNS leaks.
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