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. 

An alarming number of Android VPNs are providing a decidedly false sense of security to users, especially those living in areas where communication is censored or technology is crucial to the privacy and physical security.

A study published recently identified a number of shortcomings common to high percentages of 238 mobile VPN apps analyzed by a handful of researchers. Users downloading and installing these apps expecting secure communication and connections to private networks are instead using apps that lack encryption, are infected with malware, intercept TLS traffic, track user activity, and manipulate HTTP traffic.