Latest news with #spyware
ABC News
4 days ago
- ABC News
Canberra man already in prison sentenced to jail time for stalking woman, putting spyware on her phone
A Canberra man who admitted putting spyware on a woman's phone has been sentenced to jail after ACT Chief Magistrate Lorraine Walker described the crime as the most "heinous" form of stalking. Michael O'Connell, 45, was given a sentence of one year after he used the spyware to monitor the woman's movements and communications, including at her work. In a victim impact statement read to the court, the woman said psychologically, she felt helpless. The court heard the victim had been suspicious and asked if he had put something on her phone. O'Connell denied it, telling the woman she was paranoid. Prosecutor Sofia Janackovic told the court it was "gaslighting". "One cannot escape the irony that he was accusing her of being paranoid," Ms Janackovic said. "It was technically sophisticated … it was executed in a way that was designed to be undetected. "The defendant showed very little respect for her. "This is a gross and grave example of a stalking offence." O'Connell's lawyer, Ewan Small, told the court that during the offences he had been taking drugs, including methamphetamine, cocaine and MDMA. Mr Small said he was now in a much different position, having not taken drugs for some time. That is because O'Connell has been in jail since being found guilty of murdering another woman, Danielle Jordan, in 2022, when she fell from the front of his moving car. Ms Jordan had been trying to stop him leaving after an argument when she fell, suffering catastrophic head injuries, before dying in hospital two days later. Ms Janackovic told the court it should be wary of O'Connell's claims to have improved, given he had taken no steps to enter rehabilitation for his substance abuse, or his attitude since being in jail on the other charges. O'Connell was sentenced to 15 years' jail for the murder. Recently, the Court of Appeal overturned the verdict and sentence, but O'Connell has remained in jail. That is because the court reserved its position on the back-up manslaughter charge. One possibility is that O'Connell will be retried. The court is still deciding how to proceed with the case.
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Yahoo
Google took a month to shut down Catwatchful, a phone spyware operation hosted on its servers
Google has suspended the account of phone surveillance operator Catwatchful, which was using the tech giant's servers to host and operate the monitoring software. Google's move to shut down the spyware operation comes a month after TechCrunch alerted the technology giant the operator was hosting the operation on Firebase, one of Google's developer platforms. Catwatchful relied on Firebase to host and store vast amounts of data stolen from thousands of phones compromised by its spyware. 'We've investigated these reported Firebase operations and suspended them for violating our terms of service,' Google spokesperson Ed Fernandez told TechCrunch in an email this week. When asked by TechCrunch, Google would not say why it took a month to investigate and suspend the operation's Firebase account. The company's own terms of use broadly prohibit its customers from hosting malicious software or spyware operations on its platforms. As a for-profit company, Google has a commercial interest in retaining customers who pay for its services. As of Friday, Catwatchful is no longer functioning nor does it appear to transmit or receive data, according to a network traffic analysis of the spyware carried out by TechCrunch. Catwatchful was an Android-specific spyware that presented itself as a child monitoring app 'undetectable' to the user. Much like other phone spyware apps, Catwatchful required its customers to physically install it on a person's phone, which usually requires prior knowledge of their passcode. These monitoring apps are often called 'stalkerware' (or spouseware) for their propensity to be used for non-consensual surveillance of spouses and romantic partners, which is illegal. Once installed, the app was designed to stay hidden from the victim's home screen, and upload the victim's private messages, photos, location data, and more to a web dashboard viewable by the person who planted the app. TechCrunch first learned of Catwatchful in mid-June after security researcher Eric Daigle identified a security bug that was exposing the spyware operation's back-end database. The bug allowed unauthenticated access to the database, meaning no passwords or credentials were needed to see the data inside. The database contained more than 62,000 Catwatchful customer email addresses and plaintext passwords, as well as records on 26,000 victim devices compromised by the spyware. The data also exposed the administrator behind the operation, a Uruguay-based developer called Omar Soca Charcov. TechCrunch contacted Charcov to ask if he was aware of the security lapse, or if he planned to notify affected individuals about the breach. Charcov did not respond. With no clear indication that Charcov would disclose the breach, TechCrunch provided a copy of the Catwatchful database to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. Catwatchful is the latest in a long list of surveillance operations that have experienced a data breach in recent years, in large part due to shoddy coding and poor cybersecurity practices. Catwatchful is by TechCrunch's count the fifth spyware operation alone this year to have spilled users' data, and the most recent entry in a list of more than two-dozen known spyware operations since 2017 that have exposed their banks of data. As we noted in our previous story: Android users can identify if the Catwatchful spyware is installed, even if the app is hidden, by dialing 543210 into your Android phone app's keypad and pressing the call button. Remember to have a safety plan in place before removing spyware from your phone. — If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) provides 24/7 free, confidential support to victims of domestic abuse and violence. If you are in an emergency situation, call 911. The Coalition Against Stalkerware has resources if you think your phone has been compromised by spyware. Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
TechCrunch
4 days ago
- TechCrunch
Google took a month to shut down Catwatchful, a phone spyware operation hosted on its servers
Google has suspended the account of phone surveillance operator Catwatchful, which was using the tech giant's servers to host and operate the monitoring software. Google's move to shut down the spyware operation comes a month after TechCrunch alerted the technology giant the operator was hosting the operation on Firebase, one of Google's developer platforms. Catwatchful relied on Firebase to host and store vast amounts of data stolen from thousands of phones compromised by its spyware. 'We've investigated these reported Firebase operations and suspended them for violating our terms of service,' Google spokesperson Ed Fernandez told TechCrunch in an email this week. When asked by TechCrunch, Google would not say why it took a month to investigate and suspend the operation's Firebase account. The company's own terms of use broadly prohibit its customers from hosting malicious software or spyware operations on its platforms. As a for-profit company, Google has a commercial interest in retaining customers who pay for its services. As of Friday, Catwatchful is no longer functioning nor does it appear to transmit or receive data, according to a network traffic analysis of the spyware carried out by TechCrunch. Catwatchful was an Android-specific spyware that presented itself as a child monitoring app 'undetectable' to the user. Much like other phone spyware apps, Catwatchful required its customers to physically install it on a person's phone, which usually requires prior knowledge of their passcode. These monitoring apps are often called 'stalkerware' (or spouseware) for their propensity to be used for non-consensual surveillance of spouses and romantic partners, which is illegal. Once installed, the app was designed to stay hidden from the victim's home screen, and upload the victim's private messages, photos, location data, and more to a web dashboard viewable by the person who planted the app. TechCrunch first learned of Catwatchful in mid-June after security researcher Eric Daigle identified a security bug that was exposing the spyware operation's back-end database. The bug allowed unauthenticated access to the database, meaning no passwords or credentials were needed to see the data inside. The database contained more than 62,000 Catwatchful customer email addresses and plaintext passwords, as well as records on 26,000 victim devices compromised by the spyware. The data also exposed the administrator behind the operation, a Uruguay-based developer called Omar Soca Charcov. TechCrunch contacted Charcov to ask if he was aware of the security lapse, or if he planned to notify affected individuals about the breach. Charcov did not respond. With no clear indication that Charcov would disclose the breach, TechCrunch provided a copy of the Catwatchful database to data breach notification service Have I Been Pwned. Catwatchful is the latest in a long list of surveillance operations that have experienced a data breach in recent years, in large part due to shoddy coding and poor cybersecurity practices. Catwatchful is by TechCrunch's count the fifth spyware operation alone this year to have spilled users' data, and the most recent entry in a list of more than two-dozen known spyware operations since 2017 that have exposed their banks of data. As we noted in our previous story: Android users can identify if the Catwatchful spyware is installed, even if the app is hidden, by dialing 543210 into your Android phone app's keypad and pressing the call button. Remember to have a safety plan in place before removing spyware from your phone. — If you or someone you know needs help, the National Domestic Violence Hotline (1-800-799-7233) provides 24/7 free, confidential support to victims of domestic abuse and violence. If you are in an emergency situation, call 911. The Coalition Against Stalkerware has resources if you think your phone has been compromised by spyware.
TechCrunch
7 days ago
- Business
- TechCrunch
Apple alerted Iranians to iPhone spyware attacks, say researchers
Apple notified more than a dozen Iranians in recent months that their iPhones had been targeted with government spyware, according to security researchers. Miian Group, a digital rights organization that focuses on Iran, and Hamid Kashfi, an Iranian cybersecurity researcher who lives in Sweden, said they spoke with several Iranians who received the notifications in the last year. Bloomberg first wrote about these spyware notifications. Miaan Group published a report on Tuesday on the state of cybersecurity of civil society in Iran, which mentioned that the organization's researchers have identified three cases of government spyware attacks against Iranians, two in Iran and one in Europe, who were alerted in April of this year. 'Two people in Iran come from a family with a long history of political activism against the Islamic Republic. Many members of their family have been executed, and they have no history of traveling abroad,' Amir Rashidi, Miaan Group's director of digital rights and security, told TechCrunch. 'I believe there have been three waves of attacks, and we have only seen the tip of the iceberg.' Rashidi said that Iran is likely the government behind the attacks, although there needs to be more investigations into these attacks to reach a more conclusive determination. 'I see no reason for members of civil society to be targeted by anyone other than Iran,' he said. Kashfi, who founded the security firm DarkCell, said in an email that he helped two victims go through preliminary forensics steps, but he wasn't able to confirm which spyware maker was behind the attacks. And, he added, some of the victims he worked with preferred not to continue the investigation. Contact Us Have you received a threat notification from Apple? We'd love to hear from you. From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or Have you received a threat notification from Apple? We'd love to hear from you. From a non-work device and network, you can contact Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai securely on Signal at +1 917 257 1382, or via Telegram and Keybase @lorenzofb, or email . 'Pretty much all victims spooked out and ghosted us as soon as we explained the seriousness of the case to them. I presume partly because of their place of work and sensitivity of the matters related to that,' said Kashfi, who added that one of the victims received the notification in 2024 It's unclear which spyware maker is behind these attacks. Over the last few years, Apple has sent several rounds of notifications to people whom the company believes have been targeted with government spyware, such as NSO Group's Pegasus, or Paragon's Graphite. This kind of malware is also known as 'mercenary' or 'commercial' spyware. The notifications have helped security researchers who focus on spyware to document abuses in several countries such as India, El Salvador, and Thailand. On Apple's support page for what the company calls 'threat notifications,' last updated in April, the tech giant said that since 2021 it has notified users in 'in over 150 countries,' which shows how widespread the use of government spyware is. Apple does not disclose the names of the countries, nor the total number of people it has notified. To help victims, since last year, Apple has recommended those who received these threat notifications to reach out to digital rights group AccessNow, which runs an around-the-clock helpline staffed with researchers who can investigate spyware attacks. AccessNow has documented cases of spyware abuse all over the world. Apple did not respond to a request for comment on the notifications sent to Iranians.
Bloomberg
22-07-2025
- Bloomberg
Iranians Targeted With Spyware in Lead-Up to War With Israel
More than a dozen Iranians' mobile phones were targeted with spyware in the months prior to the country's war with Israel, according to new research. Miaan Group, a digital human rights organization based in Austin, Texas, found a number of Iranians who received threat notifications from Apple Inc. in the first half of 2025, and researchers believe they only identified a fraction of the total targets. Another round of Iranian spyware targets was discovered by Hamid Kashfi, a Sweden-based cybersecurity researcher and founder of the firm DarkCell.
