this post was submitted on 06 May 2024
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So there are ways.
Hate to rain on the Linux parade here, but didn't the article say: "There are no ways to prevent such attacks except when the user's VPN runs on Android." and that Linux was just as vulnerable as Windows?
It's not as vulnerable but it still is.
But in the details this attack is not that bad. E.g. NordVPN and I guess also other VPNs use firewall rules to drop traffic on normal network interfaces.
Their side channel is still routing traffic away from the VPN channel. Then they can observe that there is no traffic and guess that the user either didn't make requests in that moment or that he wanted to visit a website in the range covered by the route. They can not spy on the traffic.
Also you can not quickly move into a network and apply this attack, as DHCP leases usually last 1 day or at least 1 hour. Only when they expire you can apply the attack (or you force the user to drop from the network, which is easy if they are using WPA2, but only possible by blocking the wifi signal if they are using WPA3)
It is a serious issue and should be mitigated, but not as huge as news articles make it.