Derp | Security Research

Wyden Urges NSA Warning That Single-Hop VPNs Enable Traffic Correlation

Sen. Ron Wyden asked the National Security Agency to update public guidance on commercial VPNs, warning that conventional single-hop services may not protect users against sophisticated foreign surveillance. A Congressional Research Service analysis requested by Wyden found that an adversary with broad internet-traffic visibility could correlate the timing and volume of encrypted traffic entering and leaving a VPN, linking users to websites without decrypting their communications. Wyden requested an unclassified NSA response by October 14 and called for clearer advice for government personnel, defense contractors, journalists, human-rights defenders, and other likely espionage targets. He asked the agency to assess multi-hop privacy technologies—including Tor, Nym, mixnets, and Apple iCloud Private Relay—against single-hop VPNs; CRS said such architectures can make correlation harder by separating a user's identity from the destination, but do not guarantee anonymity. Current NSA and CISA guidance largely focuses on securing remote-access VPN products from intrusion rather than surveillance through bulk traffic analysis.