AIBU Distressed after work colleague told me my phone (hotspot) used to access Escort website?

[LonelyRose]

Apologies in advance I'm not up to scratch with the posting etiquette. I've been a long-time lurker here but had no real need to post up until now that is. Also sorry if the title is confusing, I've tried to explain my problem succinctly but its a bit complicated.

I've very upset all week despite putting on a brave face in front of colleagues, friends, and family. Cut a long story short I had problems with my phone accessing the Internet during the past few weeks, i.e. pages not loading, so I handed it to one of my work colleagues in IT who told me he'd look into it. He managed to fix the problem and I got the phone back the same evening (this was on Monday), which I was happy about.

However, as he handed the phone back, he mentioned that while checking for issues, he'd come across logs that showed someone had attempted (and failed) to access an escort website called Adwork numerous times (sorry I don't remember the exact name of the site). Naturally I was a bit taken aback by this as I assumed he meant someone had used my phone while it was unattended. So I pressed him to tell me more. He said that someone had tried accessing my phone's WIFI using a second device (i.e. using my phone as a 'hotspot') so I was quite relieved. With specialist software it was possible to extract times/device names, but we both thought that was OTT as it was probably just one contractors that drift in and out of our office.

However, later that evening I suddenly remembered OH had used my phone as a hotspot last year, and I just don't wanna go down that path whatsoever (I actually feel really sick in my gut as its unthinkable for me). Up till now he hasn't given me any 'suspicions' so I'm kind of angry at myself for even entertaining that thought.

Also surely 1 year+ is a a long time for a phone to be connected to a hotspot. Surely after some time the connection would time-out or refresh and so on simply for security reasons? (Thing is I'm crap with technical stuff like that so I can't be sure).

Sorry if I'm rambling here but I don't really wanna approach my close friends about this in case they think I'm a weirdo or paranoid freak for obsessing about this. I think I am probably being unreasonable but that horrible niggly feeling at the back of my mind just won't go away.

history of your home WiFi?

What??

You could try and check your DHs phone browsing history. I think adultwork also have an app as well. Not sure if he would put that on his phone though.

Hi guys I'm at work now so apologies that I'm not addressing each reply separately but someone above mentioned telling my work that I was worried about a colleague using my hotspot and not mentioning OH and just getting the audit done. That would for sure make things clearer, but the problem is if its found out that these access attempts were at midnight or silly o clock then its obv not someone from work and it will all blow up in my face. Plus the IT guy already knows no one from work has my password so then it will become clear it was someone that knows my password and probably someone that lives with me. I want to hold off confronting OH for now as I dont want to end up with no answers and back to square one, I am thinking of other ways and maybe trying to access his phone or laptop somehow, but I don't know his passcode for either. I just don't want a situation where I confront him and he denies it and twists it back at me etc, that's what usually happens in these situations I'd imagine

Sorry to the last part I should say reading the replies above the suggestion of checking his phone or laptop is probably a good one as it avoids confronting him (and his outright denial) or doing the audit done and getting myself into trouble.

Don’t ask your employer for an audit. It will be found to have been your partner and you will be in big trouble.

Why are you creating an issue for you at work highlighting to the IT guy?

Just ask your husband instead of dragging your problems into work.

Are you trying to get fired?
Please step back from the edge.
You have blown this up in your head, ask again and YOU will cause an investigation, that you will lose.
Your job your life will go.
It could have been an ad that tried to open while you were in your phone.
The IT guy told you as much, but now your obsessed by it.
Do you want to see your life go down the pan, because you got wrong advice from here?

In an attempt to reassure you about getting fired, you said you use your work device as a private one too. Is private use part of the terms and conditions of its use? For my work phone (which is explicitly not a private device) I can still enable the hotspot for others to use, but I need to set a new password each time I enable it, and turn it off when I’m done. I have no idea if your work allows this. If they don’t specify that you cant do this or similar, I doubt you can get into that much trouble for allowing your husband for one off use. Either way, change your password, turn your hotspot off and don’t let anyone set things up on your phone.

OP I really think you need to step back and let this go! You've totally catastrophised it in your mind to the point you seem obsessive and not thinking clearly - you are risking a disciplinary at your job ffs. Deep breath and stop obsessing.

My company can see what I've visited and can access it, and for a very long time after. It's not uncommon with big companies.

You don't need the phone for that though. What you've accessed is logged on a server somewhere, it might also be saved on your phone but your phone won't have the history of connections made through the hotspot.