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Today I brought my personal laptop to the office. My laptop connects to the personnel wi-fi automatically (not actual intranet). To mention, my work ID and password are needed to connect this network. I was working on Google Chrome and i wanted to look at something that is not work related, so i opened Opera Browser. And i saw that NSFW url on the tab (it was cached at home and it seems i forgot to close it) I closed the browser as i saw it even before any content was loaded. And now, i am worried about this situation.

The thing is, after i returned home, i opened Opera and i saw Opera VPN was active. And history was clean in working hours (Well, i can't tell for sure because i am pretty worried so i can't think straight. And i cleaned the whole history)

Long story short, it was a personal computer (not a work computer). It was on a company network with validation. Opera VPN was open.

1) Is it possible that my visit didn't get logged in history as i mentioned above ? (due to fact that VPN was trying to start up and i closed the browser immediately)

2) Can Opera attempt to send that request without VPN as i open browser when VPN starts up?

3) Do you think it was logged by my employer?

4) What should i do in this situation? (It was a total mistake, i didn't attempt to visit any NSFW website at work, i just forgot to close it and i didn't stay there even a second. I even didn't get to see if website was blocked or not)

P.S. I am working in a finance sector, so there is full security

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  • "i wanted to look at something that is not work related" Mr. Hand : Mr. Spicoli, you're on dangerous ground here. You're causing a major disturbance on my time. Jeff Spicoli : I've been thinking about this, Mr. Hand. If I'm here and you're here, doesn't that make it our time?
    – pcalkins
    Jun 11, 2020 at 20:52
  • in other words, don't worry, be happy. If they spend that much time crawling through internet access logs to notice you attempted to connect to a VPN, then I guess you'll have to explain why it's our time. You're still working... managing stress is good. Just don't spend 7 hours a day making comments on SO like I do.
    – pcalkins
    Jun 11, 2020 at 20:59

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Long story short, it was a personal computer (not a work computer). It was on a company network with validation. Opera VPN was open.

1) Is it possible that my visit didn't get logged in history as i mentioned above ? (due to fact that VPN was trying to start up and i closed the browser immediately)

With a VPN in place (although I am not sure of the details around Opera's VPN) it is very unlikely that anything related to that visit would have been logged anywhere other than your browser.

2) Can Opera attempt to send that request without VPN as i open browser when VPN starts up?

Entirely dependent on how it's implemented. If I were to guess, I'd say no, as that would have been a pretty big flaw in the process. If the VPN is meant to ensure access isn't logged, if the feature is enabled, reasonable effort should be implemented to ensure that access outside the VPN does not occur.

3) Do you think it was logged by my employer?

No.

4) What should i do in this situation? (It was a total mistake, i didn't attempt to visit any NSFW website at work, i just forgot to close it and i didn't stay there even a second. I even didn't get to see if website was blocked or not)

Don't worry. It's even likely that the wireless network you connected to is designed to have untrusted peers with limited bandwidth and potentially few or no content filters.

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  • he did say "finance sector"... it's certainly possible they have very sophisticated tools for even playing man-in-the-middle between employees and VPNs to prevent corporate espionage. Just sayin'...
    – pcalkins
    Jun 11, 2020 at 22:17
  • have you ever seen anything like this? content filters can have TLS inspection tools but it would be blatantly obvious to a non-corp computer that that was happening. Intercepting a VPN transparently... is not doable in practice. The simple fact that the VPN established (assuming it did) reveals the config of the network wasn't as hardened as it could have been. In addition, it is possible that the browser hadn't made a single request and all that was visible was cached.
    – Pedro
    Jun 11, 2020 at 22:26
  • I've never seen it, but I know many companies use their own internal VPNs for instance and will have each client install certs... so I don't see why a company wouldn't if they were concerned about sensitive corporate data. Though come to think of it, in this case, he'd have had to configure his laptop to connect to the company's VPN....to get any internet access.
    – pcalkins
    Jun 11, 2020 at 22:28
  • speculation and guessing doesn't answer questions. finance companies are no different to others. it's a myth that banks and financial institutions and governments / military are more secure than other orgs.
    – Pedro
    Jun 12, 2020 at 14:22
  • Well, thank you guys. I'm a little more relieved. I think there is nothing to worry so much and I'll be careful next time. @pcalkins i wanted to buy a new mouse because mine isn't work properly. It was that what i was about to do no work related)
    – whatsgoingonhere
    Jun 12, 2020 at 19:41

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