Breach date: 2018-08-16. Added to this index: 2018-08-24. Accounts affected: about 44K. Domain: spyfone.com.
What happened
In August 2018, the spyware company SpyFone left terabytes of data publicly exposed. Collected surreptitiously whilst the targets were using their devices, the data included photos, audio recordings, text messages and browsing history which were then exposed via a number of misconfigurations within SpyFone's systems. The data belonged the thousands of SpyFone customers and included 44k unique email addresses, many likely belonging to people the targeted phones had contact with.
Breach data sourced from Have I Been Pwned, used under CC BY 4.0. Additional breach metadata provided by XposedOrNot. DataExposed is an independent service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by either.
What was exposed
Audio recordings: Recordings of your voice held by a company: support calls, voice messages, smart speaker clips, meeting audio or voice notes inside an app.
Browsing histories: A list of web addresses you visited, often with dates and times, collected by a browser extension, an internet provider, a VPN, an ad network or an app with a built-in browser.
Device information: Technical details an app or website recorded about your device: make and model, operating system version, screen size, language, carrier, and sometimes the device name or advertising ID.
Email addresses: The email address you used to register or log in. It is the most common field in breaches because it doubles as your username on most sites.
Geographic locations: A general location recorded on your account, such as a country, state, city, postcode or region, either typed in by you or estimated from your IP address.
IMEI numbers: The International Mobile Equipment Identity, a unique number that identifies your phone handset on mobile networks. You can see yours by dialling *#06#.
IP addresses: The network addresses your devices used when you signed up, logged in or posted, recorded by almost every website in its access logs.
Names: Your first name, surname and sometimes middle name or initials, as you gave them when you signed up. It appears in almost every breach because nearly every account asks for it.
Passwords: The secret you use to sign in, stored by the breached service either in plain text, in a scrambled form called a hash, or encrypted. How it was stored decides how quickly it can be recovered.
Photos: Images you uploaded, shared in messages or stored in a cloud account or app, which can include private, intimate, family, document or location tagged photos.
SMS messages: Text messages stored by a phone provider, messaging gateway, business system or app, including personal chats, alerts, verification codes and appointment reminders.
What to do now
Check whether your own address is in this dataset with the free email breach check.
Change the password on this service and every other site where you used the same password.
Turn on two-factor authentication on your email account first, because it is the reset path for everything else.
Treat calls and messages that quote real details about you as hostile until you verify them another way.
Frequently asked questions
What data was leaked in the SpyFone breach?
The SpyFone breach exposed Audio recordings, Browsing histories, Device information, Email addresses, Geographic locations, IMEI numbers, IP addresses, Names, Passwords, Photos, SMS messages. About 44K accounts were affected.
Was I affected by the SpyFone breach?
Run the free email breach check with the address you used on that service. It will tell you whether your address appears in this dataset.
What should I do about the SpyFone breach?
Change the password on that account and everywhere you reused it, then turn on two-factor authentication. Passwords from this breach are traded and tried automatically against other sites.