The Ashley Madison leak, and what a VPN does not fix

In July 2015, a group calling itself the Impact Team released records from Ashley Madison, a dating site marketed to people in relationships. The published files included names, email addresses, and IP addresses tied to accounts.

The leak was of data the company held. A VPN on the user's phone would not have stopped the site from storing an email address or a card payment. It would only have changed the IP address the site saw when that person connected.

What an IP address added

An IP address in a leak can place a login near a home, an office, or a mobile network. A username on its own does not do that. That is the part of this breach a VPN would have changed.

What Oak VPN does

Oak VPN encrypts the tunnel with WireGuard and does not log the sites you visit, the addresses you connect to, or the contents of your traffic. The account still keeps your email, payment details, and connection timestamps without IP addresses. That is set out on the privacy page.