Hacked, leaked, uncovered: Why it’s best to by no means use stalkerware apps

There’s a entire shady business for individuals who wish to monitor and spy on their households. A number of app makers promote and promote their software program — sometimes called stalkerware — to jealous companions who can use these apps to entry their victims’ telephones remotely.  

But, regardless of how delicate this private knowledge is, an rising variety of these corporations are dropping big quantities of it.  

Based on TechCrunch’s ongoing tally, together with the newest knowledge spill involving uMobix, there have been no less than 27 stalkerware corporations since 2017 which can be identified to have been hacked or leaked buyer and victims’ knowledge on-line. 

That’s not a typo. Dozens of stalkerware corporations have both been hacked or had a major knowledge publicity lately. And no less than 4 stalkerware corporations have been hacked a number of instances.

The makers of uMobix and related cell monitoring apps, like Geofinder and Peekviewer, are the most recent stalkerware suppliers to reveal delicate buyer knowledge, after a hacktivist scraped the cost info of greater than 500,000 prospects and printed them on-line. The hacktivist stated they did this as a strategy to go after stalkerware apps, following within the footsteps of two groups of hacktivists that broke into Retina-X and FlexiSpy nearly a decade in the past.

The uMobix knowledge leak comes after final yr’s breach of Catwatchful, which was used to compromise the telephone knowledge of no less than 26,000 victims. Catwatchful was simply certainly one of a number of stalkerware incidents in 2025, which included SpyX, and the info exposures of Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie surveillance operations, which left messages, pictures, name logs, and different private and delicate knowledge of tens of millions of victims uncovered on-line, in line with a safety researcher who discovered a bug that allowed them to entry that knowledge.

Previous to 2025, there have been no less than 4 huge 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 non-public knowledge of tens of millions of its prospects.  

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 inner knowledge. Additionally they defaced pcTattletale’s official web site with the purpose of embarrassing the corporate. The hacker referred to a latest TechCrunch article the place we reported pcTattletale was used to observe a number of entrance desk check-in computer systems at a U.S. lodge chain.  

On account of this hack, leak, and disgrace operation, pcTattletale founder Bryan Fleming stated he was shutting down his firm. Earlier this yr, Fleming pled responsible to prices of pc hacking, the sale and promoting of surveillance software program for illegal makes use of, and conspiracy. 

Client spyware and adware apps like uMobix, Catwatchful, 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 corporations typically explicitly market their merchandise as options to catch dishonest companions by encouraging unlawful and unethical conduct. There have been multiple court cases, media investigations and surveys of domestic abuse shelters that present that on-line stalking and monitoring can result in circumstances of real-world hurt and violence.

That’s partially why hackers have repeatedly focused a few of these corporations. 

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 business is a “mushy goal.”  

“The individuals who run these corporations are maybe not probably the most scrupulous or actually involved in regards to the high quality of their product,” Galperin advised TechCrunch. 

Given the historical past of stalkerware compromises, which may be an understatement. And due to the dearth of care for safeguarding their very own prospects — and consequently the non-public knowledge of tens of hundreds of unwitting victims — utilizing these apps is doubly irresponsible. The stalkerware prospects could also be breaking the legislation, abusing their companions by illegally spying on them, and, on high of that, placing everybody’s knowledge at risk. 

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 prospects all around the world. 

On the time, the hackers who — proudly — claimed duty for the compromises explicitly stated their motivations have been to reveal and hopefully assist destroy an business that they think about poisonous and unethical. 

“I’m going to burn them to the bottom, and depart completely nowhere for any of them to cover,” one of many hackers concerned then advised Motherboard.  

Referring to FlexiSpy, the hacker added: “I hope they’ll crumble and fail as an organization, and have a while to replicate on what they did. Nevertheless, I concern they could try to give beginning to themselves once more in a brand new type. But when they do, I’ll be there.” 

Regardless of the hack, and years of detrimental public consideration, FlexiSpy remains to be energetic at present. 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 areas. One other stalkerware vendor, the India-based SpyHuman, encountered the identical destiny just a few months later, with hackers stealing textual content messages and name metadata, which contained logs of who referred to as who and when.  

Weeks later, there was the primary case of unintended knowledge publicity, reasonably than a hack.  

SpyFone left an Amazon-hosted S3 storage bucket unprotected online, which meant anybody might view and obtain textual content messages, pictures, audio recordings, contacts, location knowledge, scrambled passwords and login info, Fb messages, and extra. All that knowledge was stolen from victims, most of whom didn’t know they have been being spied on, not to mention know their most delicate private knowledge was additionally on the web for all to see.  

Aside from uMobix, different stalkerware corporations that through the years have irresponsibly left buyer and victims’ knowledge on-line embrace: FamilyOrbit, which left 281 gigabytes of non-public 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, together with chat messages, GPS coordinates, emails, pictures, and extra; and MobiiSpy, which left 25,000 audio recordings and 95,000 photos on a server accessible to anyone. 

The checklist goes on: KidsGuard in 2020 had a misconfigured server that leaked victims’ content material; pcTattletale, which previous to its 2024 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; Spyzie, Cocospy and Spyic, which left victims’ messages, pictures, name logs, and different private knowledge, in addition to prospects’ electronic mail addresses, uncovered on-line; and Catwatchful, which uncovered the total database of electronic mail addresses and plaintext passwords of shoppers. 

So far as different stalkerware corporations that truly received hacked, aside from SpyX earlier in 2025, 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; and the Brazil-based WebDetetive, which additionally received its servers deleted, and then hacked again.

There was additionally OwnSpy, which offers a lot of the back-end software program for WebDetetive, which was 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 tim; and mSpy once more.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 27 stalkerware corporations, eight have shut down, in line with TechCrunch’s tally.  

In a primary and up to now distinctive case, the Federal Commerce Fee banned SpyFone and its chief government, Scott Zuckerman, from working within the surveillance business following an earlier safety lapse that uncovered victims’ knowledge. One other linked operation referred to as SpyTrac shut down following a TechCrunch investigation. Final yr, the FTC upheld its ban on Zuckerman. 

PhoneSpector and Highster, two stalkerware apps that aren’t identified to have been hacked, additionally shut down after New York’s lawyer common accused the businesses of explicitly encouraging prospects to make use of their software program for unlawful surveillance.  

However an organization closing doesn’t imply it’s gone ceaselessly. As with Spyhide and SpyFone, a few of the identical homeowners and builders behind a shuttered stalkerware maker merely rebranded.  

“I do suppose that these hacks do issues. They do accomplish issues, they do put a dent in it,” Galperin stated. “However in case you suppose 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 really 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 in 2023, safety agency Malwarebytes stated that the use of stalkerware is declining, in line with its personal knowledge of shoppers contaminated with such a software program. Additionally, Galperin experiences seeing a rise in detrimental opinions of those apps, with prospects or potential prospects complaining they don’t work as supposed. 

However, Galperin stated that it’s potential that safety companies should not nearly 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 observe your family members will not be solely unethical, it’s additionally unlawful in most jurisdictions, because it’s thought of illegal surveillance.  

That’s already a major motive to not use stalkerware. Then there may be the difficulty that stalkerware makers have confirmed time and time once more that they can not hold knowledge safe — neither knowledge belonging to the shoppers nor their victims or targets. 

Aside from spying on romantic companions and spouses, some individuals use stalkerware apps to observe their youngsters. Whereas such a use, no less than in the USA, is authorized, it doesn’t imply utilizing stalkerware to snoop in your youngsters’ telephone isn’t creepy and unethical.  

Even when it’s utilized in a lawful method, Galperin thinks mother and father shouldn’t spy on their youngsters with out telling them, and with out their consent. 

If mother and father do inform their youngsters and get their go-ahead, mother and father ought to avoid insecure and untrustworthy stalkerware apps, and use parental monitoring instruments constructed into Apple phones and tablets and Android devices which can be safer and function overtly.  

Recap of breaches and leaks

Right here’s the entire checklist of stalkerware corporations which have been hacked or have leaked delicate knowledge since 2017, in chronological order:

First printed on July 16, 2024 and up to date to incorporate uMobix as the most recent stalkerware apps to have a safety challenge.