I am currently investigating and reverse engineering free VPNs for a master thesis, and just came across something I thought I’d share. Not sure if I’ll name-drop the VPN that this code is from, but it’s not the one mentioned within the hardcoded links… Nor do I encourage visiting any of the links in the screenshot.
I’m sharing this as a warning as to never use free vpns! They are most often the opposite of what they promise to be. (by free I do not mean the free versions of premium services). But either way; be careful about your VPN choice, as they have access to a lot of sensitive data. I’m sure most peeps here know of this already, but next time you hear someone using a free vpn, let them know…
This first image/code was sitting inside a file called NetworkModule, with some hella weird external links.
- addrDOTcx, seems to have been linked to malware? Comes up flagged as malicious a few times on VirusTotal.
- freevpnDOTzone, seems to be another free possible malicious VPN service, might investigate this one later.
- bigbrolookDOTcom, seems to longer be a registered domain. But wtf? Was this VPN service linked to p*rn??
IMAGE HERE; Don't visit these links unless you know what you're doing.
Furthermore, there is this interesting find; Now I am no expert coder, frankly quite the amateur. But does the below code really mean what I think it does? Seems like it could be creating a fake connection?
Is used once here;
Stay safe 🌻
What is sad is that users would not care even when explained why “Fast Free VPN” from Play Store should not be used. It allows them to go to the blocked sites? Then it doesn’t matter what else happens. It is very much understandable that people wouldn’t want to pay, especially with current restrictions. If I didn’t find a way to pay for my VPS, I would have rather gone for a charity-ran VPN or extension.