What type of attack does a VPN primarily protect against?

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) primarily protects against eavesdropping, which involves unauthorized interception of data as it travels across a network. When a VPN is used, it creates a secure and encrypted tunnel for data transmission, making it exceedingly difficult for attackers to access or view the data being sent between the user’s device and the destination server. This encryption ensures that even if data packets are intercepted, they remain unreadable without the encryption key.

Eavesdropping is a serious concern in network communication, particularly on unsecured or public networks where malicious entities can easily capture unencrypted information. By securing the data, a VPN significantly mitigates the risk of such attacks, protecting sensitive information from being exposed.

While other options represent valid security threats, they are not the primary focus of what a VPN is designed to guard against. For instance, denial of service attacks target system availability rather than data privacy, and while a VPN may offer some degree of protection from man-in-the-middle attacks by encrypting data, the primary role of a VPN is to prevent eavesdropping on the data in transit. Phishing attacks primarily target users to obtain credentials or sensitive information through social engineering rather than directly intercepting data in transit, making this threat unrelated to the function