Packet sniffers are true double-edged swords: they are the tools of hackers to spy on your internet usage, but they can also be used by network technicians to actually help you in having a better web surfing experience. But regardless of what these tools are used for, packet sniffers can be a serious threat, since they make every step you take easily visible. In fact, the situation could become even worse if the attacker chooses to infect your computer by injecting compromised data in the network.
This means that not only can they access your online data, including login details for whichever services you have, but they can also redirect you to phishing or other malicious websites. However, if you use a VPN, your data is secured because of the encryption these clever solutions provide.
Packet sniffers exist in many forms: they can be hardware or software, but they can also be differentiated in the way they are applied. One way or another, they all use the same base principle, namely intercepting and keeping logs of the targeted network’s traffic, creating specific records of a user’s path. Depending on the configuration of each network’s switches, packet sniffers can spy on the entirety of a network or only parts of it.
Once a connection is established, packet sniffers analyze the data and present it in a way that the person behind it can read it. For network technicians this is a way to pinpoint exactly where and why the network is failing; for hackers, on the other hand, it’s a way to track your activities and an easy way to later strike you with man-in-the-middle and other types of attacks.
The best way to avoid having virtually all your data in the hands of hackers using packet sniffers is to protect your network with some kind of encryption, whether it’s SSL or TLS. These encryption methods come by default in VPN tools, meaning they’re one of the best solutions to pick against packet sniffing. And as a nice addition, VPNs help you to have cheaper VoIP services and to circumvent geographical restrictions regarding blocked online content.
It’s important to know, however, that VPNs can’t prevent the installation of packet sniffers. On the contrary, these tools will still work the same and keep logging users whether VPN is turned on or not. The only, albeit huge difference is that when VPN is in use packet sniffers are only able to see the source and the destination of the user’s movements, as everything else is encrypted. This means that the injection of any data is impossible, too.
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