Probably a silly question: VPN Exit servers

xkeyskored

Hello all,

this is a question I am struggling to phrase in a google search, therefore I cannot find an answer. Recently thinking about the Tor network it occured to me that in the case of a VPN, the Exit server is presumably the server that decrypts the traffic? Am I wrong on that? If not, then wouldn't that mean that VPN traffic could pass overseas unencrypted. For example: If i was to want to access facebook.com (US based) from here in the UK, the connection (encryped) would go

Me>ISP>VPNSERVER>FACEBOOK

So my question, perhaps a silly one, is: Is the internet traffic between the Exit server encrypted? If not, are we all at risk by not using a VPN exit server that is based in the same country as the server we are trying to access? Because otherwise I draw the conclusion that we are sending unencrypted internet traffic over the international fibre cables that are all heavily monitored.

Thanks in advance

Staff

Hello,

your traffic is encrypted from your node to the VPN server ONLY. For encryption up to the end destination (if the end destination supports it) you need end-to-end encryption. The encryption layer provided by OpenVPN ends on the VPN exit node for your outgoing packets, and starts on the VPN servers for your incoming packets.

Please see also here:

https://airvpn.org/topic/9165-what-is-a-vpn

Kind regards