Many VPN apps on Apple’s App store can’t be trusted, a security researcher warns.
Jonny Evans for Computerworld:
I’m told Apple is at last looking into the privacy and security of free VPN apps made available across its platforms, following a report from researcher, Simon Migliano.
Migliano claims that almost 60 percent of the most popular VPN apps are actually owned (sometimes opaquely) by Chinese companies. The researcher also found that as many as 77% of these VPN apps may have what he calls “serious privacy flaws”,including no privacy policy at all, generic policies with no mention of VPN or no detailed logging policy. Migliano claims Apple is not enforcing its third-party data-sharing ban against VPN apps, with 80 percent of the top free VPN apps “in breach of the rules”, he said. Many are sharing data with third parties, he claims.
He explains that Apple is now looking into his claims, though no action has yet been taken… To its shame, given the nature of Miglianos claims, Google has not responded at all at time of writing, the researcher said.
“If I were pressed to recommend a free VPN, it would be a toss-up between TunnelBear and Windscribe as they operate on the freemium model, which means they don’t need to run invasive ad trackers and have revenue to fund a safe network,” Migliano said.
MacDailyNews Take: We’ve used TunnelBear VPN for years with good results.