EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

A hacker has breached–and wiped–cloud servers belonging to Retina-X, a company that makes electronics monitoring tools for spying on children, employees, and partners without their consent.

Known as spyware, and sometimes, stalkerware, the software gives users virtually full access to the device being monitored. As Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai from Motherboard describes it, “Whoever controls the software can see the photos the target snaps with their phone, read their text messages, or see what websites they go to, and track their location.”

While a Retina-X spokesperson claimed that no breach had been detected, according to Motherboard, the hacker was able to prove his case. Conducting a test that began by creating a Retina-X account and installing Retina-X software called PhoneSheriff onto an Android, Motherboard snapped a couple photos of shoes. Minutes later, the hacker told Motherboard it had two pictures of shoes.

Writes Franceschi-Bicchierai, “The hacker also described other photos we had on the device, told us the email account we used to register the account, and then deleted the data from our PhoneSheriff account.”

Referencing Edward Snowden, the hacker asserted that privacy is critical to who we are as individuals and how we grow and evolve. He concluded by saying, “‘I don’t want to live in a world where younger generations grow up without that right,’” reports Franceschi-Bicchierai.

Read the full story at Motherboard.