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US Senators Ask DHS To Look Into US Government Workers Using Foreign VPNs (zdnet.com)

Posted by msmash on from the tussle-continues dept.

Two US senators have asked the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to look into the possible dangers of US government workers using VPN apps that are owned by foreign companies and which redirect sensitive government-related traffic through servers located in other countries -- namely China and Russia. From a report: "If U.S. intelligence experts believe Beijing and Moscow are leveraging Chinese and Russian-made technology to surveil Americans, surely DHS should also be concerned about Americans sending their web browsing data directly to China and Russia," said Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) in a letter sent to Christopher Krebs, Director of the DHS' newly founded Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA). The two would like the DHS to issue an emergency directive and ban the use of foreign VPN apps if intelligence experts deem them a national security risk.

2 of 93 comments (clear)

  1. Just block them? by hawguy · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't see why some congressional oversight is needed -- just block VPN apps on government owned laptops. If employees are using the apps on their personal devices, they should not have sensitive government data on those devices.

  2. "Almost nobody" needs a VPN? GO FUCK YOURSELF by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Informative

    The confusion seems to be YOURS. VPN's being inexpensive has no bearing on the motivations of the end users. I use one frequently for professional and personal expediency reasons. Nothing untoward or illegal at all.

    They encrypt your traffic so the ISP can't mine it, and other 3rd parties can't readily hijack the data in stream as happens on public-accessible networks. Saying there's "no good reason" is uneducated horseshit.

    "For home, it's a easy as enabling the VPN feature present in most home routers. (Better and probably more trustworthy to use third-party router firmware...)" - UNFOUNDED HORSESHIT.

    Most routers are not running the latest firmware nor is the latest firmware available updated with the latest VPN security protocols, unlike several VPN services. You have no idea what you're talking about.

    You are not making this decision based on factual information, so obviously you have some other underlying motivation for making all this shit up. What is it?