[SOLVED] VPN Hotspot Question

[Shalashaska89]

Hi all,

I am shopping around for a VPN and have a technical question when it comes to hotspots. I will be using two mobile phones and describe the setup below.

Mobile Phone #1 connects to the internet using Mobile Phone #2 as a WiFi Hotspot. Mobile Phone #2 uses a regular mobile data subscription to connect to the internet.

On Mobile Phone #1 I want to connect to the internet through a VPN app so that my data is secure. Mobile Phone #2 will not have a VPN app installed, as I am not sending anything sensitive directly from that phone.

Q1. Will Mobile Phone #2 be able to see the unencrypted data from Mobile Phone #1 at any stage as I hotspot through it? Or will the VPN fully encrypt it in within Mobile #1 and only decrypt it once it's back at Mobile #1 ?

Q2. Does it make sense to also install a VPN app on Mobile Phone #2 from a security perspective? It's a company mobile, so I don't really want to be installing outside VPN apps on it.

Hope the above makes sense.

Many thanks in advance!

 

[bill001g]

You only need it on the first mobile everything past it is encrypted.

You have to be careful thinking a VPN is some magic protection.

Lets say you are running some poorly written app that can be intercepted. And next lets say you are really stupid and do not run the hotspot wifi in encrypted mode. So someone could intercept the data. But now you run vpn so nobody can intercept the data at the wifi. The data still only goes between you and the vpn provider encrypted. It comes out into the internet from the vpn providers sites just as you put it in and can now be intercepted between the VPN provider and the final destination.

This is why why have HTTPS. The data in encrypted between you and the server end to end so nobody can get the data. This is your best case because the only place the data is not encrypted is inside your end device and inside the server.

VPN for encryption was more for the old days when things like facebook ran normal HTTP and you could do stuff like hijack sessions.

VPN lately is used mostly by people who want to get past some restriction like geo locks in netflix. It also is used to hide your actual IP address. This was mostly people who think someone would ddos them if they found it. In your case on mobile you likely do not even have a public IP addresses assigned to you. The address is being shared so someone who intercepts the traffic would see yours mixed with many other people.