Openvpn gets bypassed by windows 10? Security risk?

Nemesis77 said:

I've encountered a strange phenomena while testing openvpn on windows 10.
I have tested both a client from my vpn provider, and the openvpn software.

According to ipleak.net, everything is working correct, I got my vpn IP number.

But! I left it connected to the vpn, and a few hours later, I needed a file from the computer (to my phone).
So I did what I usually do, connect to the SFTP server and downloaded it.
Here I should mention that I'm 15 miles (150km) from the computer, so it wasn't a local connection
So I connected and download the file, then I suddenly realise that I shouldn't been enabled to make the connection, since my phone called out my non-vpn IP address, not my current vpn IP.

I connected to my vnc and checked everything, and the SFTP server had been receiving it's ordinary connections, even thou it was connected to the vpn.

So if windows 10 let's the "original" IP connect to the computer, how can we be sure that the vpn really works?

Do I make any sense?

On windows 7 you needed to connect to the VPN address, there was it impossible to connect to the "real' IP..

This maybe not be a "question", but I'm curious if this is a local phenomena or others have detected this issue..

Hi there

@Nemesis77

"Bak2Skule" for you I think !! -- 15 miles is approx 24 KM !!! not 500 !!!!! (if you meant 150 Miles that's still only 240 KM).

VPN's do have outages from time to time

If uploading a file from your remote computer why not just use any old FTP program and tunnel from the local computer you are using or simply set up to use RDP to the remote computer.

If your remote computer's Internet address changes it's easy to automatically send an email to yourself say every 60 mins or so with the Internet address -- so set up RDP to the computer at home at the IP address.

I'm sure Windows can do this but if you install the WSL on Windows a bash script like this can send email every so often.

#!/bin/bash
# Send email from bash
# hrafn simple script to send simple email with your IP address (external)
server="<email server>"
port="<port>" ===< assume 25 -- this is for standard not auth not tls etc
from="<your email address>"
to="<email of receiver>"
# get your public IP address
myip="$(dig +short myip.opendns.com @ReSolver1.opendns.com)"
# create message
function mail_input {
echo "ehlo $(hostname -f)"
echo "MAIL FROM: <$from>"
echo "RCPT TO: <$to>"
echo "DATA"
echo "From: <$from>"
echo "To: <$to>"
echo "Subject: Internet Addressl"
echo " "
echo "Your public internet address is "
echo $myip
echo " "
echo "finished"
echo "." <==you need this to indicate end of data stream for the SMTP mail server.
echo "quit"
}

mail_input | netcat $server $port || err_exit

save as a .sh type of file and make executable and ln to /usr/local/bin

(can be modified for SSL / TLS / Password authentication -- just showing the basic idea)

Then in crontab set job to run once per hr e.g one line as follows : 0 * * * * /your command

then rdp to the IP address/ via tunnel (Putty) and to rdp port -

If Home / remote computer is Linux then any VNC client from Windows to your Linux machine should work --You will need a vnc server on it as well) .

Filezilla works fine as FTP from Windows to Linux remote system as wll as any SSH command if you aren't scared of command lines.

If you want to be really clever try with SSH and transfer X server (GUI) so you'll need something like export :display=0 on the remote linux server --then nyou can also use a much better FTP GUI like krusader to FTP the files from Linux back to your local Windows machine.

Private (not Work) VPN's IMO are only of any use to bypass geoblocking etc -- much better method is to use TOR

Cheers
jimbo