Using public Wifi with a VPN: What are the risks?

[ecureuil]

A friend of mine recently said that using public Wifi is risky even with a full-tunnel VPN, because the router would still be able to interact with my device, regardless of a VPN, and could potentially exploit any weaknesses of the OS.

How much truth is in this statement?

To my limited knowledge when I join a network I am assigned an IP and told which DNS to use and then I happily disappear into my VPN tunnel?

[jerm]

On the Security and Privacy Properties of Public WiFi

[SkewedZeppelin]

VPN service / benefits / Downsides

@exaCORE if you do use public Wi-Fi you should: use an always random MAC address my Brace does this by default GrapheneOS and DivestOS do this by default use a generic or blank hostname on Linux localhost will typically result in no hostname being set/advertised GOS/DOS do this by default note most Android systems will reuse previous DHCP states too, GOS/DOS won’t don’t give any information to the captive portal they’ll often accept anything for an email/name if they ask ensure all s…

[B977]

@jerm

On the Security and Privacy Properties of Public WiFi

So this could be summarized with “if all standard security measures are taken, then their is no threat from public wifi’s”