I know the title of this news may seem overwhelming, you might think I’m referring to a specific failure, and there’s even a chance you might think I’m doing clickbait. And you know, as an iOS user, I wish you were right and that this was an exaggeration, but I’m very afraid that’s not the case, according to an extensive investigation by Michael Horowitz, which shows that for some time, time, at least two years, VPN traffic on iOS is not as reliable as it should be.

There have been signs of this for just over two years. In March 2020, ProtonVPN, a VPN service from the creators of ProtonMail, first reported the incorrect operation of these services in the iPhone operating system. This issue was identified in iOS 13.3.1 and has persisted in all versions released to date. The last audited version is the latest version 15.6 and the problem still persists. However, it is not known if iOS 16, which will debut in a few weeks, still has this problem or if it has already been fixed.

The problem is that when you activate the VPN connection the operating system should terminate all open internet connections at that time and automatically reset them through the VPN to prevent data from being transferred outside the security layer provided by the VPN. However, and according to the researcher’s tests, iOS will not close all currently open connectionswhich means that even when the VPN is active, some of the device’s data traffic may be outside the virtual private network.

«It takes so little time and effort to recreate it and the problem is so constant that if [Apple] I should have been able to recreate it if I tried“, he writes in his report. «At first they seem to work well […] However, over time, a detailed inspection of the data leaving the iOS device shows that the VPN tunnel is leaky.«. The problem also affects iPadOS.

This in itself is a problem for any user of VPN services on Apple devices, but it’s even more chilling when you consider that these types of services are used regularly, by people living in totalitarian states who analyze the network traffic of their citizens. This problem could permanently threaten the safety of these persons for at least two years.

And it’s even worse considering it’s been a while Apple has established itself as a great protector of the privacy of its users. And it is true that it has taken many very good measures in this regard, but now we find out that the company has known about this for two years and that until now it has neither solved the problem nor at least warned its users to be more careful. They say even the best typist makes a smudge, yes, but what’s not so common is that they let more than two years go by without fixing it.