Hotspot Shield VPN fixes vulnerability that reveals user information

Madalina Dinita
by Madalina Dinita
Madalina has been a Windows fan ever since she got her hands on her first Windows XP computer. She is interested in all things technology, especially emerging technologies -- AI and DNA computing in... Read more
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Hotspot Shield VPN vulnerability

One of the main roles of a VPN service is to protect user privacy. There are many companies fighting to collect as much user data as possible and this fact is a major concern for Internet and technology users.

As a result, many decided to install a VPN software on their computers in order to block such attempts.

Unfortunately, recent news revealed that a particular VPN software bug allowed hackers and attackers to pinpoint user location.

Hotspot Shield VPN location vulnerability

The VPN in question is Hotspot Shield VPN and the man who spread the news is Paulos Yibelo, a specialist in application security and client side offensive exploit research.

Lately, I’ve been interested in VPN clients. I was focusing my research on paid commercial VPN clients with 2M+ installs. one of the clients that stood out was Hotspot Shield […] While analyzing this application, I noticed its riddled with bugs that allow sensitive information disclosure and easy compromise

He discovered that this vulnerability could reveal mainly location data which includes the country where users are located, the Wi-Fi network name, and in some extreme cases, even the IP address.

location VPN vulnerability

Obviously, this piece of news embarrassed AnchorFree, the company behind Hotspot Shield VPN but they reacted quickly.

Fortunately, they already patched this severe vulnerability last week, so everything’s back on track now.

If you haven’t updated your VPN software in a while, this means that your computer is still vulnerable. Hurry up and check for updates as soon as possible to make sure that you’re running the latest Hotspot Shield version available.

Speaking of VPN and user data privacy, check out the articles below to find out how you can better protect your privacy while online:

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