Hotspot Shield For Pc
Macabeo Eastman
it seems it has became vey diffcult to block hotspot shield , even though the application is being idenfied by palo alto , still hot spot finds it way by port 80 . is there any way to block hot spot shield.Also From IPAD/IPHONE it is easily connecting
I'm getting a similar issue, have a user using Hotspot Shield , and even though i've told PA to block the app, its still working. comes across port 80 as "unknown-tcp" and port 990 as "insufficient-data"
Second, I doubt that the port 990 traffic identified as "insufficient-data" would be enough to make the application run in long term (perhaps only as a way to find other nodes) - from the admin guide:
If you are positive that the PA didnt successfully identify hotspot shield even if you were using ssl-termination (as a debug use both "log on session start" and "log on session end" on all rules) you can contact the appid team and submit some pcaps so they can improve the hotspot shield detection: Tools Palo Alto Networks BlogPalo Alto Networks Blog
thanks. i ended up blocking "unknown-tcp" for now until we find a better resolution. after i did that i started seeing the hotspot-shield app-id start hunting ports trying to get out, but wasnt able too.. now i see him trying to get to ultrasurf and cyberghost vpn, but url filter is catching him. Its fun to watch them squirm
It's a security product. Let me share: I've come to realize that the hotspots (places that offer free WiFi like McDonalds, Hotels, etc) I've had to use provide only UNSECURED connections, even those requiring a provided username/password. Hotspot Shield connects you through their US based VPN server for free from anywhere in the world (do use an adblocker and deselect all the crap you don't want when installing). It will slow things down but it encrypts everything you do online keeping you safe from those with a little know-how from stealing your credit card info, passwords, etc.
Hotspot is just somebody letting you use their internet via a wireless router as opposed to, what I hope you do at home, password protecting your wifi via a key or passcode. that key or passcode becomes the private handshake of encryption that most of these free hopspots aren't using.
I think you might be better off in purchasing something like the cisco valet or other home VPN solutions (I won't go as far as suggesting you build your own, though in time that's what I'm going to do) and connect to your home internet, which in the end would probably be safer and much more secure
MOstly, when I'm on an unencrypted connection, I don't use sites that need passwords (e.g. Banks, Amazon, eBay. sites like this forum are fine because someone gets my password & meh), else I sign into my work's vpn (see my answer for you above).
fwiw, it appears that hotspot shield keeps some processes running even after you shut it off and exit from the little systray icon. Could that be why CCleaner doesn't wipe it completely, because the processes are active?
If just encrypting e-mail is all you're after, I use GPG4Win to encrypt any attahment. Even when home, I don't send anything sensitive via e-mail without first making it an attachment encrypted with GPG4Win. And if websites send me my username/passwords in plain view via e-mail, I immediately change it. E-Mail is generally not secure, as you mentioned yourself, your ISP, the detinations ISP, and all hands involved between the two, can easily see it.
I'm the proud owner of our online Family Tree, it's now nearing 900 individuals, and I make it loud and clear to all who collaborate with me to never send anything unless they also use GPG4Win. Sadly, if it's too confusing for them, I insist on snail mail instead. My Public Key can be found here:
This whole topic of Unsecured Hotspots came about because I happened to take my laptop with me on a recent vacation. I never knew they were most all unsecured. I had to scramble for a solution just so I could check my non-https web based e-mail. And, it appears that OpenVPN is the best solution. Fortunately, it's offered as a free service but, like most all stuff I've used for free, it won't be long before the good ones will start charging. But, hopefully not.
Have you ever thought twice about E-mailing sensitive information because you knew personal E-mail was unsecured? Send it as an encrypted attachment for free in three simple steps but only after completing the below three steps once to install and prepare.
You need an OpenPGP key pair (see Wikipedia about), one is shared (public key) and, the other is kept private (secret key). What I encrypt with your public key can only be decrypted by you with your secret key or, in other words, what you encrypt with my openly shared public key can only be decrypted by me with my secret private key which is never shared. Don't worry, it really is very easy once you get past the install and key pair creation (see below on how to encrypt or decrypt, it's only 3 steps).
I've found, to me, the easiest way to stop Hotspot Shield from starting, short of uninstalling it, is to use WinPatrol to disable the four Hotspot Shield services seen in the image below. It stops it dead, 100%, on startup, and I'm a regular user of WinPatrol anyway.
What your ISP will be able to see is you communicating with the hotspot VPN. The data that is returned will be encrypted so your ISP won't really know it's contents unless they unencrypt it.
Hotspot Shield has a large VPN network, lots of features, and unblocked almost everything we threw at it. Unfortunately, the poor Windows kill switch, lack of audits, and a host of usability and app issues leave this VPN lagging behind the top competition.
The core service has a sizable network of over 1,800 servers across 90 countries and 130+ locations. Malware blocking and anti-phishing are included for free, P2P is supported everywhere, and there are servers optimized for streaming, gaming, and more.
There are apps for Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS, a command line app for Linux, and a TV app for Amazon Fire TV or any smart TV with access to Google Play. If all that still isn't enough, the support site has guides on manually setting up the service on these and other platforms (routers, too).
Hotspot Shield's free VPN plan offers just one US location, almost no features, support for one device only, no email or live chat support, and a host of annoying ads on the mobile apps. There is one big plus to the free plan: there are no annoying "per month" bandwidth limits. You can use it as much as you like, but unless you really have no VPN budget at all, it's hard to recommend.
That's at the high end of the normal VPN price range. Most providers charge around $3 to $5 per month for annual products and even less for longer-term contracts (Private Internet Access offers a three-year plan covering up to 10 devices for an initial $2.03 a month).
Hotspot Shield's Privacy Policy begins with some reassuring details on the company's logging practices. There's no record of your browsing history, and although it logs your IP address when you connect, this is deleted at the end of the session.
"The domains that have been accessed by our users, but on an anonymized basis such that we do not know which user accessed which domain (we also aggregate this information on an approximately monthly basis).
There's some scope for problems here. Anonymising URLs is more difficult than it sounds, and we just have to hope that Hotspot Shield is doing it properly. And even if it doesn't log your browsing, there's still scope for building fairly detailed profiles on how you use the service. For example, the company could keep a record of the time and date of every session, the device used, your approximate location, and how much data you transferred.
That's just speculation, but there's also real-world evidence of Hotspot Shield taking some tracking-related liberties. We expected the web dashboard's Download button to point us to an installer file hosted on the Hotspot Shield website, for instance, but in reality, it links directly to web analytics company Kochava. That doesn't feel like the action of a company putting your privacy first.
Our real concern here is that although Hotspot Shield promises there's nothing to link your account to any VPN browsing activity, it's not yet confirmed with an independent audit. We're left to take Hotspot Shield's words on trust.
Hotspot Shield's apps include a kill switch to block your internet connection if the VPN drops, preventing IP leaks. It's a very useful feature, but not all kill switches deliver on their promises, so we were keen to run some tests.
One immediate problem we noticed is the Windows kill switch only works Hotspot Shield's own Hydra protocol. It's automatically disabled if you use WireGuard or IKEv2. That's unusually feeble; we can't think of any other VPN who offers a kill switch that doesn't support the most standard protocols.
There's another issue. The kill switch is turned off by default, so we expect one of the first things any experienced user will do is jump into Settings and turn it on. Great! Very sensible. Except if you switch to the Protocols tab and choose WireGuard for speed, the app will disable the kill switch without warning. You'll assume you're protected, but you're not, and you'll never realize unless you check Settings again (and why would you?)
It may be even worse than that. The default protocol setting is Automatic, which means even if the app mostly chooses Hydra, which supports the kill switch, there's always the chance it'll choose WireGuard or IKEv2, which do not. That means, with the default settings, the kill switch sometimes works, sometimes doesn't, depending on the app's preferred protocol.
You can avoid this by activating the kill switch, and changing the Protocols setting from Automatic to Hydra. But that's far from obvious, and even experienced technical users might not realize that's necessary.
When we figured out how to reliably activate the kill switch, the results were initially very good. We tried forcibly closing the connection, and simulated a crash by terminating the Hotspot Shield process, but the results were the same: the kill switch activated, the app recovered and reconnected, and our traffic was never unprotected.
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