More than 700 million people around the world trust virtual private network, or VPN, apps to keep their data safe.

Travelers use them on public Wi-Fi, people living under restrictive governments use them to reach blocked websites and many users rely on them to hide browsing habits from their internet service providers.

The promise is simple: A VPN creates a private tunnel between your device and the wider web. But new research led by Arizona State University student Benjamin Mixon-Baca shows that for many popular free VPNs, that tunnel may be riddled with cracks.

His paper, “Hidden Links: Analyzing Secret Families of VPN Apps,” coauthored with Jedidiah Crandall , a Fulton Schools associate professor of computer science and engineering, along with Jeffrey Knockel of Citizen Lab , s

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