Hotspot Shield unintentional download

Hi guys,

At risk of sounding like a computer illiterate idiot here, I've recently been sacked from my job because my boss was under the impression that I had intentionally downloaded and installed Hotspot Shield in an attempt to access things I can't at work (she's not actually told me what she suspected me of accessing).

I did not intentionally install this software on my PC. I hadn't even heard of it before I was sacked for installing it; I realised this sort of thing exists as I do run Hola Unblocker for Netflix at home, but I genuinely have no reason to install this on my work computer - I use social media every day as part of my job, and I've not to date come across a site which I've tried and failed to access at work. I don't know what she 'blocks' as I've never looked at any content at work which would be unacceptable, beyond perhaps checking my personal email!

I also have not (knowingly) downloaded any other software on my PC (e.g. I certainly haven't downloaded any torrent software) but I may have installed Java or Flash - I genuinely cannot remember as this is something I expect when using the internet. I had noticed ads had started to appear on my browser (Firefox) for a couple of days prior to being sacked, but I had dismissed this - I realise I'm not exactly hot on internet security, but I generally take a 'I'll get round to that sometime' approach on things like toolbars, ads displaying.

From my boss' perspective, "software doesn't just appear on your PC by magic."

Could Hotspot Shield have installed either a) without me installing anything at all, or from an email attachment that another person with this malware sent? or b) as a direct result of me downloading some sort of every-day, heavily downloaded software such as flash or java?

Thanks very much. x

 

Greetings, moomin1988, and welcome to MajorGeeks.

Quick answer: yes.

I am not familiar with Hotspot Shield (by the way: Seth Rosenblatt wrote this c|net review about the program, and there's an interesting older thread about it at Wilders Security.

I cannot pass judgement on that program or its usage, but I can iterate that practically any program can be downloaded and installed if one isn't extremely careful. We've all seen the e-mail attachments, there are "drive-by" installations (just visiting a web page can plant applets) and we're constantly on guard against the various inclusions in otherwise wanted programs. Even my beloved avast! antivirus now comes with an offer to install Chrome, and I can't count how many times I've had to disable the Ask Toolbar offer.

Bottom line: tell your ex-boss that she is wrong - there exists the strong possibility that you did not knowingly download and install the software. If she can't understand that then maybe it's time to move on to greener pastures.

 

Brilliant, thank you very much. And thanks for such a prompt reply. On to greener pastures indeed :cool

 

Old, but I'll add that HSS recently appeared on my laptop, and I am damn certain I didn't do it on purpose. It has caused a few problems already, one of them being that it showed my IP address as being from several different places, causing some malfunctions with my access to some web hosts that I manage. It also seems to be responsible for an occasional dropout while accessing web pages in Chrome, throwing an error message about proxy not being available. I'm just about to uninstall the thing and hit it with MBAM and whatever else comes to mind.

 

By all means uninstall it. It's meant to provide you with anonymous surfing but has caused more "harm" than good as evidenced by your current issues. Using Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel may not completely remove it though. Use something like Revo Uninstaller in Advanced mode to get rid of HSS.

 

Watch where you get your downloads from.
MajorGeeks is clean.
Other clean sites: Softpedia, Techspot and Filehippo.
Source: http://www.thewindowsclub.com/safe-software-download-sites

I'm extremely disappointed that SourceForge has stooped to the low level of some of the other sites.

 

Yep, I'll try out Revo asap, although Windoze seems to have got rid of it... but you're right, it likely came along with some other crap that's still lurking around.

It was dated Feb 15, and I was out of town visiting kids, in Austin. I'm looking for what I might've d/l'ed then. This is a pretty new Toshiba Win8 laptop, so I very well might've been adding stuff, but don't recall right off hand. I'll check the Chrome history, too, could be a clue there.

Thanks.