US EditionSecurity Breach Reveals Catwatchful Spyware Is Snooping on Thousands of Phones - Here's How to Stay Safe
- Security researcher Eric Daigle discovered a data breach in early June exposing Catwatchful spyware's database of over 62,000 user emails and plaintext passwords, plus phone data from 26,000 victims across multiple countries including Mexico, Colombia, India, Peru, and Argentina.
- The breach resulted from an unauthenticated custom API that sent stolen data to Google Firebase, allowing anyone online to access sensitive information and revealing developer Omar Soca Charcov's identity through reused personal email links.
- Catwatchful poses as a child monitoring application but secretly collects and transmits victims' photos, messages, live location, and real-time audio and video feeds to an online control panel accessible exclusively to the individual who installed the app, usually someone with direct access to the target device.
- Google responded by adding Catwatchful detection to Google Play Protect to warn Android users and suspended, then reinstated, Catwatchful’s hosting, while investigators continue reviewing Firebase’s role in the breach.
- This incident highlights the ongoing risk stalkerware poses as these banned apps exploit poor security and often target victims through known individuals, with experts advising vigilance and support hotlines for those affected.
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Stealth app Catwatchful caught spying on thousands of phones, leak reveals emails, passwords and its own admin
Catwatchful, a stealth spyware app used to spy on phones, has been breached, exposing thousands of victims and even its administrator. The leak reveals passwords, private data, and developer details.
·India
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A surveillance application, supposedly intended for discreet parental control, revealed its own secrets. Catwatchful, that is its name, exposed the e-mails, clear passwords and other sensitive data of 62,000 of its users. Worse, it also revealed the information of 26,000 phones that it was supposed to spy on. An alarming discovery made by researcher Eric Daigle, which sounds like a brutal warning.
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