Exposed Data Illustrates the Nightmare Scenario for a Stalkerware Victim
Key takeaways
- In findings released on Thursday, a security researcher details the discovery of a cloud repository that was publicly accessible on the open internet with no access controls.
- The screenshots, he says, captured business conversations with invoices and personal payment details, phone numbers, some partial credit card numbers, and huge volumes of sensitive information.
- “You capture the initial victim, but you also victimize everyone they communicate with,” he says.
Why this matters: a development in AI with implications for how people work, create, and decide.
PHOTO-ILLUSTARTION: WIRED STAFF; GETTY IMAGESComment Loader Save Story Save this story Comment Loader Save Story Save this story Stalkerware allows people to secretly spy on romantic partners, family members or other associates by infecting a target’s phone and then silently amassing their text messages, photos, location information, and other data. The malware is profoundly intrusive in and of itself, but digital rights advocates have long cautioned that on top of violating victims’ personal privacy, it also creates an additional risk that data gathered using spyware could then separately be breached by an additional, unrelated actor, creating a true privacy disaster. New research this week illustrates one such example of a true worst-case scenario.
In findings released on Thursday, a security researcher details the discovery of a cloud repository that was publicly accessible on the open internet with no access controls. It contained nearly 90,000 screenshots showing a European celebrity’s private messages, photos, and phone usage—seemingly compiled using stalkerware.
“All the selfies were one person, all the chats were one person, and it was basically everyone they chatted with divided into Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, and WhatsApp,” Jeremiah Fowler, a researcher with Black Hills Information Security who discovered the exposed data, tells WIRED. “There was a lot of nudity, there were pictures that you wouldn’t want out in the public.”