Published in Mobiles

White hat hackers deleted spyware from surveillance victims

by on30 August 2023


76,000 devices liberated

Unnamed hackers reportedly breached the spyware WebDetetive, deleting device information to protect surveillance victims and denying spyware users new data. 

WebDetetive spyware software allows users unfettered access to a victim's device, whether that's a government using it to surveil citizens or an abuser using it to stalk a survivor. The spyware advertises its ability to monitor everything a victim types, listen to phone calls and track locations for "less than a cup of coffee" without being seen. It works by downloading an app on a person's phone, under an alias that goes undetected, to give full access to the device.

The WebDetetive breach compromised more than 76,000 devices belonging to customers of the stalkerware. The unnamed hackers said that users of the spyware won't get any new data from their targets and more than 1.5 gigabytes of data freed from app's servers. 

A cache of data shared by the hackers provided a look at what they were able to accomplish, and non-profit DDoSecrets had a look at the logs of exposed datasets to verify and analyse the information.

Hackers obtained information on customers like IP addresses and devices that they targeted.

Last modified on 30 August 2023
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