Paranoid OpenVPN hardens OpenVPN profiles and provides additional optional provider-specific fixes (e.g. Private Internet Access).
When installed, Paranoid OpenVPN provides the paranoid_openvpn executable
which comes with built-in help. These are the common options:
$ pip install paranoid-openvpn
$ # usage: paranoid_openvpn [--min-tls {1.0,1.1,1.2,1.3}] [--pia] source dest
$ # Process a remote zip file of OpenVPN profiles and apply PIA fixes
$ paranoid_openvpn --pia https://www.privateinternetaccess.com/openvpn/openvpn-strong.zip /path/to/output_dir
$ # Process one profile and allow TLS 1.2 (default is 1.3)
$ paranoid_openvpn --min-tls 1.2 /path/to/input/profile.ovpn /path/to/output/hardened.ovpnsource above can be a remote zip, remote single profile, local zip, local
single file, or local directory.
Most OpenVPN users are aware of the cipher and hash settings but that is
usually the extent of security options that people modify. OpenVPN, however,
has two distinct channels that each have their own security settings: the
control and data channel. The cipher and hash settings apply only to the
data channel but OpenVPN exposes settings for the control channel as well.
The control channel is used to exchange keys that are then used to encrypt
your traffic in the data channel.
Paranoid OpenVPN tries to match the security of the data channel to the control channel. In broad terms, OpenVPN has options for <128-bit, 128-bit, 192-bit, and 256-bit ciphers for the data channel. Paranoid OpenVPN will configure the control channel to match these protection levels, with an absolute minimum of 128-bits.
Where cryptographic judgement calls needed to be made, these rules were followed:
- AEAD ciphers are always preferred over non-AEAD ciphers
- At the 256-bit security level, AES-GCM was preferred over CHACHA20-POLY1305 (for no particular reason).
- The 192-bit security level is rounded up to 256-bit as there are no 192-bit TLS ciphers.
- At the 128-bit security level, CHACHA20-POLY1305 was the preferred fallback for AES-128-GCM instead AES-128-CBC because it is an AEAD cipher. AES-128-CBC is then the fallback for CHACHA20-POLY1305.
Most VPN providers work fine with "normal" OpenVPN profiles but some providers benefit from a few tweaks.
PIA's provided OpenVPN profiles seemingly only support AES-128-CBC and
AES-256-CBC as the cipher option. However with a little coaxing, PIA will
connect using AES-256-GCM and AES-128-GCM. Use the --pia flag to allow
your client to client with these AEAD ciphers.
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A lot of inspiration for this project was taken from https://blog.securityevaluators.com/hardening-openvpn-in-2020-1672c3c4135a.