SpyFone & CEO Banned From Stalkerware Biz

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The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has kicked spyware maker SpyFone out of the surveillance business.
 
The same goes for its CEO, Scott Zuckerman, and Support King LLC, the company behind the stalkerware.
 
In a Wednesday announcement, the FTC slammed SpyFone, calling it a stalkerware app that sold real-time access to “stalkers and domestic abusers to stealthily track the potential targets of their violence.” It added that SpyFone also failed to provide even basic security, exposing device owners “to hackers, identity thieves, and other cyber threats.”
 
The FTC also ordered SpyFone to delete its illegally harvested information and to notify owners that somebody had secretly slipped the app onto their devices.
 
The FTC’s statement quoted Samuel Levine, Acting Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, who called SpyFone “a brazen brand name for a surveillance business that helped stalkers steal private information.
 
“The stalkerware was hidden from device owners, but was fully exposed to hackers who exploited the company’s slipshod security,” Levine said.
 
The FTC described SpyFone as “a stalkerware app that allowed purchasers to surreptitiously monitor photos, text messages, web histories, GPS locations, and other personal information of the phone on which the app was installed without the device owner’s knowledge.”

Read more: SpyFone & CEO Banned From Stalkerware Biz | Threatpost