Mobile spyware maker gets hacked

MSpy, the maker of mobile spying software, has apparently been hacked, exposing troves of text messages, emails, payment information and location data.

Security journalist Brian Krebs uncovered the data on a dark Web forum, but the company has not yet confirmed the breach.

{mosads}MSpy claims more than 2 million people use its monitoring software, most frequently by parents to track their children or by companies to oversee employees.

While it’s not clear exactly how many of those users might have had their data compromised, the data that was taken is incredibly sensitive.

Normally in a data breach, users lose their credit card information or at worst their Social Security number. But according to Krebs, the mSpy cache of information includes anything that might be on a phone: “photos, calendar data, corporate email threads and very private conversations.”

And much of that information is from the phones of minors whose parents were keeping tabs on them.

That is why so-called spyware has become so controversial. Many of these mobile spying apps do so without the permission of the phone user being watched.

The issue has caught the attention of lawmakers, particularly Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.), who refers to the software as “stalker” apps. Franken claims the technology is often used by domestic abusers.

The Senate Judiciary Committee’s Privacy and Technology Subcommittee held a hearing on the issue last year, when Franken was chairing the panel. The lawmaker has also introduced a bill to ban the location-tracking apps several times.

Absent legislation, the Justice Department has started cracking down on the makers of these tracking apps. In September, the agency made its first arrest of someone trying to sell the spyware StealthGenie.

“Apps like StealthGenie are expressly designed for use by stalkers and domestic abusers who want to know every detail of a victim’s personal life — all without the victim’s knowledge,” said Assistant Attorney General Leslie Caldwell.