Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie are the most popular apps that are well-known for their tiptoe tracking proficiency. Theyve since gone dark after a large-scale hack exposed sensitive addresses and personal data of millions of users. Stalkerware apps often run in the background on mobile devices. They allow unaccountable third parties to access sensitive data such as private messages, nude photos, phone call logs, and even real-time location tracking.
The March 2023 incident is yet another alarming addition to the long and increasing list of these phone surveillance operations. Apps like Cocospy, Spyic, and Spyzie helped the spyware industry get a pretty nefarious reputation for remaining undetectable from device home screens. With this ingenious design, users could spy on a target’s phone activity in real time. This functionality was perhaps ironically their downfall, as this feature billion users were exploited to compromise millions of devices.
One industrious security researcher found a massive hole in the way these applications were coded. This vulnerability left the door open for anyone with the appropriate expertise to retrieve private information from any device with the apps downloaded. The impact of this vulnerability was very tangible. It opened the floodgates to the scraping of as many as 3.2 million email addresses from customers who opted in to receive these beneficial services. These exposed email addresses were later submitted to the data breach notification website, Have I Been Pwned.
Deep investigations show that Cocospy, Spyic and Spyzie have virtually identical coding backgrounds yet are sold under separate name brands. Their analogy architecture played a key role in paving the way for the exact same security weakness that has now left them vulnerable to exploitation. Citizens and users of these new apps can increasingly hear the clock ticking. Their personal data was likely lost due to a lack of basic security precautions and coding oversight.
The consequences of this breach are a shocking example of the increasing danger that stalkerware apps pose to privacy violations. The Coalition Against Stalkerware has long warned about the importance of user awareness and vigilance when it comes to these apps. They provide tools to assist people who believe their phones have been infected by spyware. This extends even to apprehensions regarding creepy apps such as Cocospy, Spyic, or Spyzie.