If you’re a kid from the 80s or 90s, your parents probably had the hardest time tracking you down. The concept of smartphones probably didn’t even exist back then. These days, parents who want to keep tabs on their kids have it easy—thanks to stalkerware apps that help them keep track of where their kids are at all times. But before you rush to install these stalkerware apps, you might want to take note that one of those apps, Spyzie, suffered a breach on both iPhone and Android devices.
What are stalkerware apps?
Imagine downloading an app onto someone else’s phone. That app can transmit the phone’s location, activity, and sometimes even data, all without the user’s knowledge. That’s basically what a stalkerware app is. It almost sounds illegal, which it is if someone installs it without the other person’s permission.
However, many stalkerware apps frame themselves as parental apps. They advertise location tracking features as a way for parents to keep tabs on their kids’ whereabouts at all time, protect them from online dangers, and so on. But more often than not, many of these apps are used for malicious purposes.
The Spyzie data breach
If you’ve never heard of Spyzie before, you’re not alone. But despite its seemingly unknown status, it recently suffered a massive data breach that exposed close to 519,000 unique email addresses belonging to its customers. This is because Spyzie shares the same source code as other stalkerware apps like Cocospy and Spyic. Both of these apps were breached and exposed the data of more than 2 million people.
Spyzie’s breach seems small in comparison, but it is still alarming, nonetheless. A security researcher shared a cache of the email addresses with TechCrunch and Troy Hunt, who operates Have I Been Pwned. This Spyzie breach affects both iPhone and Android users who installed the stalkerware app. However, Android users appear to be the most affected.
Spyzie’s developers designed it to remain hidden from your home screen, but Android users can dial 001 and hit the call button to reveal it. After that, you can remove it from your phone. For Apple users, you should check to make sure that your Apple Account doesn’t have any device you don’t recognize.
This is because Spyzie on iOS devices relies on your Apple Account’s username and password. Even if the breach hasn’t impacted you, enabling two-factor authentication is still a good idea.
2025-02-28 15:05:39