Zack Whittaker reports:
A security researcher has found a way to identify users of Hotspot Shield, a popular free virtual private network service that promises its users anonymity and privacy.
Hotspot Shield, developed by AnchorFree, has an estimated 500 million users around the world relying on its privacy service. By bouncing a user’s internet and browsing traffic through its own encrypted pipes, the service makes it harder for others to identify individual users and eavesdrop on their browsing habits.
But an information disclosure bug in the privacy service results in a leak of user data, such as which country the user is located, and the user’s Wi-Fi network name, if connected.
Read more on ZDNet.
Note: this does not appear to have been resolved by the VPN service.