How do I evade detection while using a VPN during an attack

Question

I’m practicing ethical hacking techniques in a lab environment, and I’ve been experimenting with using a VPN to hide my IP address during simulated attacks. However, I’m curious if there are methods that security teams use to detect VPN traffic during an attack, even when the attacker is using a VPN.

What techniques are available to detect VPN use during attacks, and are there ways to avoid detection while still maintaining anonymity? I’m looking for insights into how attackers may try to evade detection.

Answer 1

Yes, even when we're using a VPN, the security team can detect the VPN traffic through several techniques like:

1. Traffic Patterns: VPNs have a unique pattern, such as consistent packet sizes or encrypted traffic over common VPN ports. Most of the network monitoring tools can detect these VPNs.

2. Known VPN IP Addresses: Most of the VPN providers have public IP ranges that security teams can blocklist or flag. The threat intelligence feeds often include these VPN IP Addresses to monitor for suspicious activities.

3. DNS Leaks: If your VPN hasn't masked your DNS request properly, it can reveal your true IP address or detection of VPN usage.

Now, in order to avoid this detection of VPN usage,

1. Use Multiple VPNs: We could chain VPNs to make us less detectable.

2. Use VPN + Tor: We can combine VPN with Tor Browser making it difficult analyzing the traffic patterns.

3. Obfuscating VPN Traffic: Tools like OpenVPN's obfsproxy can make VPN traffic look like HTTPS traffic and help us avoid detection.