This past few months, PrivitizeVPN has been tricking people on downloading their VPN installer. They named their installer after lots of different pirated software, movies, games, and music so people searching for a pirated software would download the file in hopes of getting the software free. But instead of getting the pirated software you will instead get the installer of a VPN software client that calls itself Privitize.

VPNs are amazing tools for privacy and data security. VPNs are typically used to create a secure, encrypted private tunnel between their location and a corporate network, through which they can send and receive sensitive data without concern that the data might be intercepted enroute through MITM attacks.

But sometimes using a VPN makes you less secure. How? In this case, the VPN pushes all the Internet traffic on a victim's computer through an encrypted tunnel that terminates in a datacenter physically located in Stockholm, Sweden. While the VPN may protect the data until it arrives in Stockholm, once it arrives at the datacenter, someone could simply sniff the "out" port of whatever VPN device receives the data.

In essence, it routes absolutely everything directly through a network that is inherently untrustworthy: After all, the company distributing these VPN client installers lied to you about the nature of the installers. Would you really trust a company that would do that to protect other, considerably more sensitive data they might be able to access?

This VPN was recently introduced to the public by most of the bloggers as the free VPN service offered by The Pirate Bay but was later on confirmed by The Pirate Bay that it isn't actually a service being offered by them directly. It's a free VPN, but offered by a third party that generates revenue for the site just like any ad would.

So would I still use this free vpn service? DEFINITELY NOT!

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