The bureau has asked for high vigilance due to the risk of personal details being leaked and banking apps being hacked by unreliable VPN services.
What you should know
The Cyber Bureau of Nepal Police has warned about the risks of using VPN randomly. The Bureau issued a notice on VPN on Wednesday amid the government's warning that unregistered social media platforms operating in Nepal would be deactivated.
The bureau points out that using unauthorized and unreliable VPNs can lead to personal information being leaked. Also, it is said in the notification that the banking app may be hacked and cause financial loss. Along with this, there is a high risk of malware/virus attacks.
The Bureau has also included in the notification the slogan that how safe and reliable VPN is depends on how reliable the company or provider providing such service is. If the government shuts down social networks, users are likely to use VPN. Earlier, when Tiktok was banned, the use of VPN and Open DNS increased rapidly. Internet service providers complained that it benefited porn sites .
The full form of VPN is Virtual Private Network . When using such a service, instead of going directly to the website, the data is encrypted and only reaches the website from there through the VPN server . It works like sending user data through a secure tunnel . It allows the user's internet traffic to be routed through servers in other countries, so even websites or apps that are banned in Nepal can be run.
As VPN hides the user's IP address or location, it can be misused to commit various cyber crimes and illegal activities . VPN has become a challenge for police to find criminals in cyber crime investigation.
