NordVPN, a virtual private network provider that promises to “protect your privacy online,” has confirmed it was hacked.
The admission comes following rumors that the company had been breached. It first emerged that NordVPN had an expired internal private key exposed, potentially allowing anyone to spin out their own servers imitating NordVPN.
VPN providers are increasingly popular as they ostensibly provide privacy from your internet provider and visiting sites about your internet browsing traffic. That’s why journalists and activists often use these services, particularly when they’re working in hostile states. These providers channel all of your internet traffic through one encrypted pipe, making it more difficult for anyone on the internet to see which sites you are visiting or which apps you are using. But often that means displacing your browsing history from your internet provider to your VPN provider. That’s left many providers open to scrutiny, as often it’s not clear if each provider is logging every site a user visits.
