There’s a entire shady business for individuals who need to monitor and spy on their households. A number of app makers promote and promote their software program — also known as 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 firms are shedding big quantities of it.
In response to information.killnetswitch’s ongoing tally, together with the latest knowledge spill involving uMobix, there have been at the least 27 stalkerware firms since 2017 which are identified to have been hacked, or leaked buyer and victims’ knowledge on-line.
That’s not a typo. Dozens of stalkerware firms have both been hacked or had a major knowledge publicity lately. And at the least 4 stalkerware firms have been hacked a number of occasions.
The makers of uMobix and related cellular monitoring apps, like Geofinder and Peekviewer, are the most recent stalkerware supplier to reveal delicate buyer knowledge, after a hacktivist scraped the cost info of greater than 500,000 clients and revealed them on-line. The hacktivist mentioned they did this as a solution to go after stalkerware apps, following within the footsteps of two teams of hacktivists who broke into Retina-X and FlexiSpy nearly a decade in the past.
The uMobix knowledge leak comes after final years’ breach of Catwatchful, which was used to compromise the cellphone knowledge of at the least 26,000 victims. Catwatchful was simply one among a number of stalkerware incidents in 2025, which included SpyX, and the info exposures of Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie surveillance operations, which left messages, photographs, name logs, and different private and delicate knowledge of hundreds of thousands of victims uncovered on-line, in accordance with a security researcher who discovered a bug that allowed them to entry that knowledge.
Previous to 2025, there have been at the least 4 huge stalkerware hacks in 2024.
The final stalkerware breach in 2024 affected Spytech, a little-known adware maker based mostly in Minnesota, which uncovered exercise logs from the telephones, tablets, and computer systems monitored with its adware. Earlier than that, there was a breach at mSpy, one of many longest-running stalkerware apps, which uncovered hundreds of thousands of buyer assist tickets, which included the non-public knowledge of hundreds of thousands 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 inner knowledge. In addition they defaced pcTattletale’s official web site with the purpose of embarrassing the corporate. The hacker referred to a current information.killnetswitch article the place we reported pcTattletale was used to observe 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 mentioned he was shutting down his firm. Earlier this 12 months, Fleming pled responsible to costs of pc hacking, the sale and promoting of surveillance software program for illegal makes use of, and conspiracy.
Client 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 firms typically explicitly market their merchandise as options to catch dishonest companions by encouraging unlawful and unethical habits. There have been a number of court docket instances, media investigations and surveys of home abuse shelters that present that on-line stalking and monitoring can result in instances of real-world hurt and violence.
That’s partially 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, mentioned the stalkerware business is a “smooth goal.”
“The individuals who run these firms are maybe not essentially the most scrupulous or actually involved concerning the high quality of their product,” Galperin instructed information.killnetswitch.
Given the historical past of stalkerware compromises, which may be an understatement. And due to the dearth of care for safeguarding their very own clients — and consequently the non-public 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 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 clients all around the world.
On the time, the hackers who — proudly — claimed duty for the compromises explicitly mentioned 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 go away completely nowhere for any of them to cover,” one of many hackers concerned then instructed Motherboard.
Referring to FlexiSpy, the hacker added: “I hope they’ll disintegrate and fail as an organization, and have a while to mirror on what they did. Nevertheless, I concern they may attempt to give start 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 continues to be energetic as we speak. The identical can’t be mentioned about Retina-X.
The hacker who broke into Retina-X wiped its servers with the purpose of hampering its operations. The corporate bounced again — after which it bought hacked once more a 12 months later. A few weeks after the second breach, Retina-X introduced that it was shutting down.
Simply days after the second Retina-X breach, hackers hit Mobistealth and Spy Grasp Professional, 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 a couple of 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 unintentional knowledge publicity, relatively than a hack.
SpyFone left an Amazon-hosted S3 storage bucket unprotected on-line, which meant anybody might view and obtain textual content messages, photographs, 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 firms that over time have irresponsibly left buyer and victims’ knowledge on-line embrace: FamilyOrbit, which left 281 gigabytes of non-public knowledge on-line protected solely by an easy-to-find password; mSpy, which leaked over 2 million buyer information in 2018; Xnore, which let any of its clients see the non-public knowledge of different clients’ targets, together with chat messages, GPS coordinates, emails, photographs, and extra; and MobiiSpy, which left 25,000 audio recordings and 95,000 pictures on a server accessible to anybody.
The checklist goes on: KidsGuard in 2020 had a misconfigured server that leaked victims’ content material; pcTattletale, which previous to its 2024 hack additionally uncovered screenshots of victims’ gadgets 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, photographs, name logs, and different private knowledge, in addition to clients’ e mail addresses, uncovered on-line; and Catwatchful, which uncovered the total database of e mail addresses and plaintext passwords of shoppers.
So far as different stalkerware firms that really bought hacked, other than SpyX earlier in 2025, there was Copy9, which noticed a hacker steal the info of all its surveillance targets, together with textual content messages and WhatsApp messages, name recordings, photographs, contacts, and brows historical past; LetMeSpy, which shut down after hackers breached and wiped its servers; and the Brazil-based WebDetetive, which additionally bought its servers deleted, after which hacked once more.
There was additionally OwnSpy, which gives 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’s TheTruthSpy, a community of stalkerware apps, which holds the doubtful file of getting been hacked or having leaked knowledge on at the least three separate events.
Hacked, however unrepented
Of those 27 stalkerware firms, eight have shut down, in accordance with information.killnetswitch’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 security lapse that uncovered victims’ knowledge. One other linked operation referred to as SpyTrac shut down following a information.killnetswitch investigation. Final 12 months, 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 clients to make use of their software program for unlawful surveillance.
However an organization closing doesn’t imply it’s gone perpetually. As with Spyhide and SpyFone, among the identical homeowners 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 mentioned. “However if you happen to assume that if you happen to hack a stalkerware firm, that they’ll merely shake their fists, curse your identify, 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, if you truly handle to kill a stalkerware firm, is that the stalkerware firm comes up like mushrooms after the rain,” Galperin added.
There may be some excellent news. In a report in 2023, security agency Malwarebytes mentioned that using stalkerware is declining, in accordance with its personal knowledge of shoppers contaminated with any such software program. Additionally, Galperin experiences seeing a rise in detrimental critiques of those apps, with clients or potential clients complaining they don’t work as supposed.
However, Galperin mentioned that it’s attainable that security companies are usually not pretty much as good at detecting stalkerware as they was once, 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 an element of a complete world of tech-enabled abuse,” Galperin mentioned.
Say no to stalkerware
Utilizing adware to observe your family members is just not solely unethical, it’s additionally unlawful in most jurisdictions, because it’s thought-about illegal surveillance.
That’s already a major cause to not use stalkerware. Then there’s the problem that stalkerware makers have confirmed time and time once more that they can’t maintain knowledge safe — neither knowledge belonging to the purchasers nor their victims or targets.
Aside from spying on romantic companions and spouses, some folks use stalkerware apps to observe their youngsters. Whereas any such use, at the least 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 utilized in a lawful method, Galperin thinks dad and mom shouldn’t spy on their youngsters with out telling them, and with out their consent.
If dad and mom do inform their youngsters and get their go-ahead, dad and mom ought to avoid insecure and untrustworthy stalkerware apps, and use parental monitoring instruments constructed into Apple telephones and tablets and Android gadgets which are safer and function overtly.
Recap of breaches and leaks
Right here’s the whole checklist of stalkerware firms which have been hacked or have leaked delicate knowledge since 2017, in chronological order:
First revealed on July 16, 2024 and up to date to incorporate uMobix as the most recent stalkerware apps to have a security difficulty.
For those who or somebody you realize wants assist, the Nationwide Home Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) gives 24/7 free, confidential assist to victims of home abuse and violence. In case you are in an emergency scenario, name 911. The Coalition In opposition to Stalkerware has sources if you happen to assume your cellphone has been compromised by adware.
