I used this tool to see that the encryption was enabled on my computer and then I verified it by running a packet sniffer and protocol analyzer.
I checked the connection when not connected to the VPN and captured some packets and then did the same thing when connected. Easily, I was able to see that the data being transferred was actually encrypted when being sent to the VPN. In this article, I’ll show you how you can verify if your connection is encrypted also.
If you don’t have any technical expertise, don’t really worry. All you need to do is press a record button, scroll through a list and check some text. You can ignore everything else as it’ll mostly be gibberish unless you know something about computers and networking. On the Mac we’re going to use CocoaPacketAnalyzer and on the PC we’re going to use Wireshark.
Verify Encryption on a Mac
- Choose “Analyze” to start the analysis.
- Choose “Source” to open the source file you want to analyze.
- Choose “Output” to see the results of your analysis.
To start a capture of network traffic, you click on the Capture button. If you save a capture session, it’s called a trace file and you can open those again later on using the second button. However, for our purposes, we just want to see the data is encrypted and won’t really be saving any of these captures.
Capture Interface: We will be capturing data through the web interface. ..
The first thing you need to do is choose the connection you’re using. You can do this by going to System Preferences and then clicking on Network. The next thing you need to do is pick the IPv4 address for the connection. You can figure this out by going to System Preferences and then clicking on Network.
To capture a network connection, click on the blue connection in the list on the left and then check the IP address field on the right-hand section. As you can see, it says 192.168.1.x, so that matches the en0 – IP4 – 192.168.1.68 option in the dropdown list in the program.
You can choose to capture a specific window or all windows on the screen. You can also choose to capture a specific frame or all frames on the screen.
To start the computer, you need to press the button on the front of the machine. After you do, there are a few things you should do. First, close all programs and taskbar programs running. Then, kill any background processes that are still running. Finally, click Start.
After doing that, immediately stop the capture and type in one or two web addresses into your browser. You only want to capture for a few seconds and nothing more. It might be a good idea to have the web addresses already typed into tabs in your browser and then you can just press Enter to load the pages once you start the capture.
If you press the left arrow, you will see a list of options that look like this: If you press the right arrow, you will see a list of options that look like this:
Scroll through the list of data at the top and look at the data in the box on the lower right. Since there are probably thousands of rows, you can just keep pressing the down arrow key fast and looking at the data change at the bottom.
If your VPN connection is actually unencrypted, every line you scroll through should show data that looks like the data in the image. Since it’s just a bunch of random characters, it’s unreadable. With an unencrypted connection, nothing should be readable for any row in all those thousands of rows.
I’ve been able to see more data on the internet now that encryption is in place. I’ve visited aseemkishore.com using a Mac and Safari and other data, and not every packet will be readable on an unencrypted connection. However, for most packets you’ll be able to see the actual data, HTML code, protocol headers, etc. An encrypted connection means that not even a single byte of information will be readable.
Verify Encryption on a PC
Now, you need to open Wireshark and start looking for any suspicious traffic. You can do this by clicking on the little arrow in the top left corner of the window and then selecting “Open in new window.” Once you have opened Wireshark, click on the “Traffic” tab and then select “Source: (PC name or IP address).” This will show all of the traffic that was sent from your PC to a specific IP address. You can also select “Destination: (PC name or IP address).” This will show all of the traffic that was received from that IP address. Now, you need to determine which of these traffic sources is causing your PC to be infected. If you are not sure which source is causing your PC to be infected, you can try using a different program called Malwarebytes. Malwarebytes is a free program that can help you determine which infections are happening on your PC. To download Malwarebytes, go to www.malwarebytes.com and click on the link below: Once you have downloaded Malwarebytes, open it up and start it up. The home screen should look like this: Now, if there are any suspicious infections appearing in Malwarebytes, then you will need to remove them by clicking on the “Remove” button at the bottom of the window and then selecting “All.”
To capture data on a network interface, you’ll need to select one from the Interface List. I like Wireshark better because you can see how much data is being transferred on each interface.
Now that you’ve captured your data, it’s time to start analyzing it. To do so, you can use the various tools in the interface list below or the tools in the Analysis tab on the left. The Analysis tab includes a variety of tools that can help you understand your data and make decisions about how to use it.
CocoaPacketAnalyzer on the Mac shows the same data as CocoaPacket Analyzer on my computer. I can scroll through it at the top and make sure that data section is complete gibberish, which means my connection is encrypted. If I can read any words or text, it means the data is not being encrypted. Make sure you browse through at least a couple of hundred rows quickly using the arrow keys.
VPN connections are typically encrypted, which makes them more secure than regular internet connections. This post will show you how to use a VPN to securely connect to the internet. I know it made me feel a lot better. If you have any questions about the programs or are having trouble understanding the results, please leave a comment and I’ll try to help. Enjoy!
