Do you believe that staying connected to a VPN will always protect your privacy? Well, that depends on whether the DNS requests made by your device can be properly protected by your VPN service provider.
If not, a DNS leak will be used to spread your information. To keep everything hidden inside the VPN tunnel, this article provides heads-up on how to prevent DNS leak.
How to Prevent DNS Leak?
When it comes to mapping names and numbers, the DNS system is likened to a phone book. DNS servers are used to convert user requests, or more precisely, queries for names, into IP addresses so that website access may be efficiently handled.
On the other hand, a DNS leak occurs when your device sends traffic to a third-party DNS server, this makes it more vulnerable for other parties to snoop on your activities.
To make this easy for you to understand consider this instance. You enter a website address into the address bar of your web browser each time you access a webpage. Even if you are connected via a VPN, your internet service provider (ISP) receives this as a DNS query and responds with the directives you require.
Do not forget that every ISP has a database of DNS names together with their IP addresses.
So, when your device sends your DNS traffic outside the VPN tunnel, this is known as a VPN leak. This indicates that the data pertaining to your surfing habits is not encrypted. It is equivalent to not utilizing a VPN at all.
Four Ways to Prevent a DNS Leak
There are different ways to prevent a DNS leak. However, the following offers four approaches to how you can do so.
Ensure to Use a VPN Service with a Reliable DNS Leak Protection Feature
VPN services vary in quality. For example, ExpressVPN assures its customers that all communication between the device in use and the DNS servers is encrypted. ExpressVPN makes sure that no data traffic leaves the security tunnel when returning any webpage to you each time you view a website.
Avoid Using Free Wi-Fi
The free Wi-Fi can tempt you to surf while you’re there whenever you’re in a hotel or an airport. Unfortunately, the majority of public Wi-Fi connections are encrypted, and malevolent hackers can use this to seize all of your data flow.
Enable a Firewall
A firewall can prevent your data from leaving your device by deactivating the DNS. Make careful to block non-VPN data traffic using your firewall if you wish to restrict the sites your VPN can access.
Use an Anonymous Web Browser
To connect online, you can use Tor, Epic, or SRWare Iron, which relies on an anonymous computer network. Hence you can protect yourself from third-party observation by hiding your online actions.
Nevertheless, this will only keep other users of your device from seeing your browser history. Thus, it’s still there.
What Causes a DNS leak?
A DNS or Domain Name System is an internet system called converts human-readable domain names like www.google.com into machine-readable numbers or IP addresses like 191.3.4.56 so that computers can identify the location to be accessed.
Moreover, a DNS leak may happen for a variety of reasons. For instance, before you connect to the VPN, all traffic may be assigned to your ISP’s DNS server due to improper VPN configuration.
Certain VPN services, especially the free ones, lack their own DNS servers, which causes ongoing DNS leaks. They also lack IPv6 capability, which means that your DNS requests may travel beyond the VPN tunnel. The situation is even worse if your device has been compromised and your DNS traffic is then forwarded outside of your VPN tunnel.
Thus, it is wise to avoid utilizing your ISP’s default DNS server by using a trustworthy VPN and to avoid visiting dubious websites that could lead you into a hacker’s trap.
How to Check if you Have a DNS Leak
With internet tools like ExpressVPN’s Leak Test, you can always run a DNS leak test. To check if you have a DNS leak:
- Simply, go to the DNS Leak Test on your browser and run a leak test.
- This action will immediately determine whether your ISP is able to monitor your online behavior, including your browsing history, apps you use, and other data you transmit.
- Also, it will reveal who controls the DNS servers for each page you visit.
The website will ensure that there is no possibility of a DNS leak when you connect to ExpressVPN. Also, ExpressVPN’s customer support team is available around-the-clock to help you resolve the issue if you still notice a DNS leak (although this seldom occurs).
What can I Do if I have a DNS Leak?
If you have a DNS leak, please consider the following steps carefully to fix the leakage:
- Use a VPN c with DNS leak prevention integrated. It is by far the easiest method, but regrettably, just a few VPN services offer it.
- Apply VPNCheck (Pro version) DNS Leak Prevention is a feature of VPNCheck’s Pro edition.
- Get a static IP and switch DNS servers.
FAQs
What Does a DNS Leak Do?
Because it goes against the purposes for which a user employs a VPN service, a DNS leak can be serious. It may lead to the unintentional disclosure of users’ sensitive information to their ISP, other companies, and malicious actors watching network activities, including browsing history, IP address, and location.
Should I Be Worried About a DNS Leak?
What Makes DNS Leaks Risky? Your computer is practically broadcasting the websites you’re attempting to access when your DNS leaks. Even if you’re using a VPN, this might pose a serious privacy risk because it can reveal the websites you’re browsing. A DNS leak can also affect the speed of your computer.
In fact, this leak grants online hackers’ access to the network systems of the users, allowing them to steal data and modify DNS settings to route the users to dangerous websites.
Can DNS Harm your Phone?
If you unintentionally connect to one, it has the potential to redirect your DNS requests to nefarious websites that could corrupt your phone or deceive you into disclosing personal information. Because of this, the market produced products to protect communication between your device and the DNS server.
How Do I know if my DNS is OK?
From a command prompt, type ipconfig /all to check the IP address, subnet mask, and default gateway. Verify the DNS server’s status as the authoritative one for the name being looked up. If so, see Looking for issues with reliable data.
Does a VPN Prevent DNS Leaks?
According to an estimate, 25% of the most popular free Android VPN apps did not successfully protect users from DNS and other leaks, according to our own analysis of free VPNs.