

Traffic on HTTPS websites is already encrypted, which makes it difficult to tell if your VPN is encrypting the data.

You first need to open an unprotected HTTP website in your browser. For the purposes of your VPN encryption analysis, you’ll need two stream captures: one unprotected control data set, and another one with VPN protection on. Now that you know how to capture network packets, let’s learn how to analyze that packet data. How to Analyze Captured Packets With Wireshark If you made a mistake at any point, or you just want to redo everything, you can restart the capture by pressing the shark fin icon to the left of the stop button. That said, if all you need to do is analyze your VPN traffic, then read on. If your use case differs, Wireshark itself provides a bucket load of documentation and user guides, and, although it doesn’t have its own forum, there is an active subreddit where you can ask other users for help. Unless you’re testing your own custom VPN, we recommend going through our VPN reviews to check for previous tests, or just use one of the providers on our best VPN list instead. In all honesty, the process is difficult to understand. Then we’ll teach you how to capture packets and analyze them using Wireshark’s built-in tools. In this guide, we’ll go over how to install and set up the Wireshark software. Sniffing out the unencrypted packets is the hardest part of the process, but you can use Wireshark’s filtering and sorting tools to make the job easier.Testing a VPN for leaks involves capturing a stream of data packets and analyzing them to see if any of them are unencrypted.Wireshark is a powerful tool for many things, and despite its daunting interface, it’s easy to use for some niche cases, like testing VPN encryption.This guide will show you how to use Wireshark. At Cloudwards, we use it to inspect network traffic and data packets to make sure that the VPNs we test are properly encrypting traffic. Founded in 1998 under the name Ethereal, it is the world’s most widely used network packet inspector, or packet sniffer. Wireshark is a free, open-source packet inspection tool. Last Updated: 01 Jan'23 T12:00:00+00:00 Facts checked by Vildana Bratic


