What should I do if my Windows Firewall turned on by itself and my supervisor thinks I enabled it?

If you're just a standard user, you shouldn't even be able to enable or disable the firewall. It sounds like something funky is happening. It could be a misconfiguration, like the firewall switching to a public network setting and causing issues with processes. You might want to suggest checking the network settings to your supervisor.

Honestly, if the firewall is causing issues, that's a fault in how it's configured, not yours. If you can't make changes yourself, it’s not your fault if it turns on automatically. If your supervisor still doesn't get it, maybe suggest looking at the audit logs if they exist to show when the firewall was actually turned on.

Just remind your supervisor about the legal concept called *onus probandi*. Basically, the burden of proof lies with the accuser. If they’re accusing you of enabling it, it’s on them to prove it. Just keep your cool and don’t let it escalate too much. Good luck!

You definitely need to keep an eye on this situation. If something like this happens again, it might be worth checking if the network is considered domain, public, or private, as that could have an impact on how the firewall behaves.

If you’re in a standard user role, there's no way you enabled it without admin rights. Your supervisor should know that. It might help to explain that the firewall should have been configured properly to allow necessary processes without disabling it altogether.