Data breach reveals Catwatchful ‘stalkerware’ is spying on thousands of phones


A security vulnerability in a stealthy Android spyware operation called Catwatchful has exposed thousands of its customers, including its administrator.

The bug, which was discovered by security researcher Eric Daigle, spilled the spyware app’s full database of email addresses and plaintext passwords that Catwatchful customers use to access the data stolen from the phones of their victims. Catwatchful is spyware masquerading as a child monitoring app that claims to be “invisible and cannot be detected,” all the while uploading the victim’s phone’s private contents to a dashboard viewable by the person who planted the app. The stolen data includes the victims’ photos, messages, and real-time location data.

Read more…
Source: TechCrunch News


Sign up for the Cyber Security Review Newsletter
The latest news and insights delivered right to your inbox


Related:

  • Coinbase warns of $400m hit after data breach

    May 15, 2025

    Crypto exchange Coinbase has disclosed a significant cyber attack that could cost the company between $180m (£135m) and $400m (£300m), after hackers breached account data belonging to a “small subset” of its users. The news sent shares down three per cent in pre-market trading on Thursday. Coinbase said it received an email from an unknown threat ...

  • Ransomware group Lockbit appears to have been hacked

    May 8, 2025

    The ransom-seeking cybercriminals behind the extortion group Lockbit appear to have suffered a breach of their own, according to a rogue post to one of the group’s websites and security analysts who follow the gang. On Wednesday one of Lockbit’s darkweb sites was replaced with a message saying, “Don’t do crime CRIME IS BAD xoxo from ...

  • A timeline of South Korean telco giant SKT’s data breach

    May 8, 2025

    In April, South Korea’s telco giant SK Telecom (SKT) was hit by a cyberattack that led to the theft of personal data on approximately 23 million customers, equivalent to almost half of the country’s 52 million residents. At a National Assembly hearing in Seoul on Thursday, SKT chief executive Young-sang Ryu said about 250,000 users have ...

  • Top ticket resale platform hit by data breach

    May 6, 2025

    Ticket reselling platform Ticket To Cash kept an unprotected database online, exposing sensitive information on hundreds of thousands of customers, experts have warned. The database was discovered by cybersecurity researcher Jeremiah Fowler, who managed to get in touch with the company and get the database locked down, sharing the details withVPNMentor. Ticket To Cash is a ...

  • TikTok fined €530M for EU data breach

    May 2, 2025

    TikTok has been hit with a €530 million penalty by the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) for violating EU privacy laws following a probe into the platform’s transfer of European user data to China. The watchdog found that the company breached the bloc’s data protection rules through unlawful transfers of European user data to China, giving ...

  • Dating app Raw exposed users’ location data and personal information

    May 2, 2025

    A security lapse at dating app Raw publicly exposed the personal data and private location data of its users, TechCrunch has found. The exposed data included users’ display names, dates of birth, dating and sexual preferences associated with the Raw app, as well as users’ locations. Some of the location data included coordinates that were specific ...