When people don’t understand how something works, it can be easy to be afraid of the consequences of that thing not working right. And this also makes them ripe targets for being frightened by hucksters who will then happily sell them a solution for the problem. This was the trade of snake oil salesmen back in the day – selling cures for ailments that didn’t exist or that didn’t actually improve the consumer’s health. The realm of computers is rife with cybersecurity snake oil, as well, and one of the most lucrative products is a virtual private network (VPN) service. Today I’m going to help you understand just what a VPN is and (perhaps more importantly) what it is not.

In other news: T-Mobile tried to buy their hacked customer data back (and failed); the feds have discovered a troubling and powerful new hacking toolkit for industrial control systems; 8 million Cash App users may have had their data exposed; Pegasus spyware was discovered on the devices of EU officials; a company is offering to install chips under your skin that will allow you to pay for stuff with your hand; a scathing article about a security failure by Wyze web cams; and hackers are using fake Emergency Data Requests to get your data from tech companies.