Hacked, Leaked, Exposed: Why You Should Never Use Stalkerware Apps
upstart writes:
Last week, an unknown hacker broke into the servers of the U.S.-based stalkerware maker pcTattletale. The hacker then stole and leaked the company's internal data. They also defaced pcTattletale's official website with the goal of embarrassing the company.
"This took a total of 15 minutes from reading the techcrunch article," the hackers wrote in the defacement, referring to a recent TechCrunch article where we reported that pcTattletale was used to monitor several front desk check-in computers at Wyndham hotels across the United States.
As a result of this hack, leak and shame operation, pcTattletale founder Bryan Fleming said he was shutting down his company.
Consumer spyware apps like pcTattletale are commonly referred to as stalkerware because jealous spouses and partners use them to surreptitiously monitor and surveil their loved ones. These companies often explicitly market their products as solutions to catch cheating partners by encouraging illegal and unethical behavior. And there have been multiple court cases, journalistic investigations, and surveys of domestic abuse shelters that show that online stalking and monitoring can lead to cases of real-world harm and violence.
And that's why hackers have repeatedly targeted some of these companies.
According to TechCrunch's tally, with this latest hack, pcTattletale has become the 20th stalkerware company since 2017 that is known to have been hacked or leaked customer and victims' data online. That's not a typo: Twenty stalkerware companies have either been hacked or had a significant data exposure in recent years. And three stalkerware companies were hacked multiple times.
[...] But a company closing doesn't mean it's gone forever. As with Spyhide and SpyFone, some of the same owners and developers behind a shuttered stalkerware maker simply rebranded.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.