There’s a entire shady trade for individuals who wish to monitor and spy on their households. A number of app makers market their software program — typically known as stalkerware — to jealous companions who can use these apps to entry their victims’ telephones remotely.
But, regardless of how delicate this knowledge is, an rising variety of these firms are dropping large quantities of it.
In keeping with TechCrunch’s tally, counting the most recent knowledge breach of SpyX, there have been no less than 25 stalkerware firms since 2017 which might be identified to have been hacked, or leaked buyer and victims’ knowledge on-line. That’s not a typo: At the least 25 stalkerware firms have both been hacked or had a big knowledge publicity lately. And 4 stalkerware firms had been hacked a number of occasions.
SpyX is the most recent stalkerware supplier reported this yr to have been breached, though the breach itself dates again to mid-2024. The breach reveals that the SpyX household of apps compromised the personal cellphone knowledge of just about two million victims on the time of its breach.
The SpyX breach comes after the information exposures of Spyzie, Cocospy, and Spyic surveillance operations that left messages, pictures, name logs, and different private and delicate knowledge of tens of millions of victims uncovered on-line, based on a safety researcher who discovered a bug that allowed them to entry that knowledge.
Previous to this yr, there have been no less than 4 large stalkerware hacks in 2024. The final stalkerware breach in 2024 affected Spytech, a little-known spyware and adware maker based mostly in Minnesota, which uncovered exercise logs from the telephones, tablets, and computer systems monitored with its spyware and adware. Earlier than that, there was a breach at mSpy, one of many longest-running stalkerware apps, which uncovered tens of millions of buyer assist tickets, which included the private knowledge of tens of millions of its clients.
Beforehand, an unknown hacker broke into the servers of the U.S.-based stalkerware maker pcTattletale. The hacker then stole and leaked the corporate’s inside knowledge. In addition they defaced pcTattletale’s official web site with the purpose of embarrassing the corporate. The hacker referred to a current TechCrunch article the place we reported pcTattletale was used to watch a number of entrance desk check-in computer systems at a U.S. resort chain.
Because of this hack, leak and disgrace operation, pcTattletale founder Bryan Fleming stated he was shutting down his firm.
Client spyware and adware apps like SpyX, Cocospy, mSpy and pcTattletale are generally known as “stalkerware” (or spouseware) as a result of jealous spouses and companions use them to surreptitiously monitor and surveil their family members.
These firms usually explicitly market their merchandise as options to catch dishonest companions by encouraging unlawful and unethical conduct. And there have been multiple court cases, journalistic investigations and surveys of domestic abuse shelters that present that on-line stalking and monitoring can result in instances of real-world hurt and violence.
And that’s why hackers have repeatedly focused a few of these firms.
Eva Galperin, the director of cybersecurity on the Digital Frontier Basis and a number one researcher and activist who has investigated and fought stalkerware for years, stated the stalkerware trade is a “mushy goal.”
“The individuals who run these firms are maybe not probably the most scrupulous or actually involved concerning the high quality of their product,” Galperin informed TechCrunch.
Given the historical past of stalkerware compromises, that could be an understatement. And due to the shortage of care for safeguarding their very own clients — and consequently the private knowledge of tens of 1000’s of unwitting victims — utilizing these apps is doubly irresponsible. The stalkerware clients could also be breaking the regulation, abusing their companions by illegally spying on them, and, on high of that, placing everybody’s knowledge in peril.
A historical past of stalkerware hacks
The flurry of stalkerware breaches started in 2017 when a gaggle of hackers breached the U.S.-based Retina-X and the Thailand-based FlexiSpy again to again. These two hacks revealed that the businesses had a complete variety of 130,000 clients all around the world.
On the time, the hackers who — proudly — claimed duty for the compromises explicitly stated their motivations had been to reveal and hopefully assist destroy an trade that they contemplate poisonous and unethical.
“I’m going to burn them to the bottom, and go away completely nowhere for any of them to cover,” one of many hackers concerned then informed Motherboard.
Referring to FlexiSpy, the hacker added: “I hope they’ll collapse and fail as an organization, and have a while to mirror on what they did. Nonetheless, I concern they may try to give beginning to themselves once more in a brand new kind. But when they do, I’ll be there.”
Regardless of the hack, and years of unfavourable public consideration, FlexiSpy remains to be lively immediately. The identical can’t be stated about Retina-X.
The hacker who broke into Retina-X wiped its servers with the purpose of hampering its operations. The corporate bounced again — and then it got hacked again a year later. A few weeks after the second breach, Retina-X announced that it was shutting down.
Simply days after the second Retina-X breach, hackers hit Mobistealth and Spy Master Pro, stealing gigabytes of buyer and enterprise information, in addition to victims’ intercepted messages and exact GPS places. One other stalkerware vendor, the India-based SpyHuman, encountered the identical destiny a number of months later, with hackers stealing textual content messages and name metadata, which contained logs of who known as who and when.
Weeks later, there was the primary case of unintentional knowledge publicity, slightly than a hack. SpyFone left an Amazon-hosted S3 storage bucket unprotected online, which meant anybody might see and obtain textual content messages, pictures, audio recordings, contacts, location, scrambled passwords and login info, Fb messages and extra. All that knowledge was stolen from victims, most of whom didn’t know they had been being spied on, not to mention know their most delicate private knowledge was additionally on the web for all to see.
Different stalkerware firms that through the years have irresponsibly left buyer and victims’ knowledge on-line are FamilyOrbit, which left 281 gigabytes of private knowledge on-line protected only by an easy-to-find password; mSpy, which leaked over 2 million buyer information in 2018; Xnore, which let any of its customers see the personal data of other customers’ targets, which included chat messages, GPS coordinates, emails, pictures and extra; MobiiSpy, which left 25,000 audio recordings and 95,000 photographs on a server accessible to anyone; KidsGuard, which had a misconfigured server that leaked victims’ content material; pcTattletale, which previous to its hack additionally exposed screenshots of victims’ devices uploaded in real time to an internet site that anybody might entry; and Xnspy, whose builders left credentials and personal keys left within the apps’ code, permitting anybody to entry victims’ knowledge; and now Spyzie, Cocospy and Spyic, which left victims’ messages, pictures, name logs, and different private knowledge, in addition to clients’ electronic mail addresses, uncovered on-line.
So far as different stalkerware firms that truly acquired hacked, aside from SpyX, there was Copy9, which noticed a hacker steal the data of all its surveillance targets, together with textual content messages and WhatsApp messages, name recordings, pictures, contacts, and brows historical past; LetMeSpy, which shut down after hackers breached and wiped its servers; the Brazil-based WebDetetive, which additionally acquired its servers wiped, and then hacked again; OwnSpy, which supplies a lot of the back-end software program for WebDetetive, additionally acquired hacked; Spyhide, which had a vulnerability in its code that allowed a hacker to entry the back-end databases and years of stolen round 60,000 victims’ knowledge; Oospy, which was a rebrand of Spyhide, shut down for a second time; and the most recent mSpy hack, which is unrelated to the beforehand talked about leak.
Lastly there may be TheTruthSpy, a community of stalkerware apps, which holds the doubtful file of getting been hacked or having leaked knowledge on no less than three separate events.
Hacked, however unrepented
Of those 25 stalkerware firms, eight have shut down, based on TechCrunch’s tally.
In a primary and up to now distinctive case, the Federal Commerce Fee banned SpyFone and its chief govt, Scott Zuckerman, from working within the surveillance trade following an earlier safety lapse that uncovered victims’ knowledge. One other stalkerware operation linked to Zuckerman, known as SpyTrac, subsequently shut down following a TechCrunch investigation.
PhoneSpector and Highster, one other two firms that aren’t identified to have been hacked, additionally shut down after New York’s legal professional normal accused the businesses of explicitly encouraging clients to make use of their software program for unlawful surveillance.
However an organization closing doesn’t imply it’s gone eternally. As with Spyhide and SpyFone, a number of the similar house owners and builders behind a shuttered stalkerware maker merely rebranded.
“I do assume that these hacks do issues. They do accomplish issues, they do put a dent in it,” Galperin stated. “However in case you assume that in case you hack a stalkerware firm, that they are going to merely shake their fists, curse your title, disappear in a puff of blue smoke and by no means be seen once more, that has most positively not been the case.”
“What occurs most frequently, whenever you truly handle to kill a stalkerware firm, is that the stalkerware firm comes up like mushrooms after the rain,” Galperin added.
There’s some excellent news. In a report final yr, safety agency Malwarebytes stated that the use of stalkerware is declining, based on its personal knowledge of consumers contaminated with any such software program. Additionally, Galperin stories seeing a rise in unfavourable evaluations of those apps, with clients or potential clients complaining they don’t work as supposed.
However, Galperin stated that it’s potential that safety corporations aren’t pretty much as good at detecting stalkerware as they was, or stalkers have moved from software-based surveillance to bodily surveillance enabled by AirTags and different Bluetooth-enabled trackers.
“Stalkerware doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Stalkerware is a component of an entire world of tech-enabled abuse,” Galperin stated.
Say no to stalkerware
Utilizing spyware and adware to watch your family members shouldn’t be solely unethical, it’s additionally unlawful in most jurisdictions, because it’s thought-about illegal surveillance.
That’s already a big purpose to not use stalkerware. Then there may be the problem that stalkerware makers have confirmed time and time once more that they can not maintain knowledge safe — neither knowledge belonging to the shoppers nor their victims or targets.
Other than spying on romantic companions and spouses, some individuals use stalkerware apps to watch their kids. Whereas any such use, no less than in the USA, is authorized, it doesn’t imply utilizing stalkerware to snoop in your children’ cellphone isn’t creepy and unethical.
Even when it’s lawful, Galperin thinks dad and mom shouldn’t spy on their kids with out telling them, and with out their consent.
If dad and mom do inform their kids and get their go-ahead, dad and mom ought to steer clear of insecure and untrustworthy stalkerware apps, and use parental monitoring instruments constructed into Apple phones and tablets and Android devices which might be safer and function overtly.
Recap of breaches and leaks
Right here’s the whole checklist of stalkerware firms which were hacked or have leaked delicate knowledge since 2017, in chronological order:
Up to date on March 19, 2025, to incorporate SpyX as the most recent breach of a stalkerware supplier.
In the event you or somebody wants assist, the Nationwide Home Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) supplies 24/7 free, confidential assist to victims of home abuse and violence. In case you are in an emergency scenario, name 911. The Coalition Against Stalkerware has sources in case you assume your cellphone has been compromised by spyware and adware.