Poland-based spyware LetMeSpy is no longer running and said it would shut down its servers in June following a data breach that included vast amounts of data stolen from the phones of thousands of victims.
In a notice posted on its website in English and Polish, LetMeSpy confirmed that the spyware service had been "permanently shut down" and would cease operations at the end of August. The notice says LetMeSpy is preventing users from logging in or registering new accounts.
Another notice on LetMeSpy's previous login page, which no longer works, corroborates previous reports that the hackers who disrupted the spyware's operations also deleted data on its servers.
"The breach included unauthorized access to the database of the LetMeSpy website, downloading data and concurrently deleting data that the attackers removed from the website," the notice reads.
An analysis of TechCrunch's web traffic shows that LetMeSpy's application no longer works, and the spyware maker's website no longer offers the spyware application for download.
LetMeSpy is an Android cell phone monitoring app specially designed to hide on the home screen of the victim's phone, making the app difficult to detect and remove. When an app like LetMeSpy is implanted into a person's phone (usually by someone who knows the phone's passcode), it continually steals that person's messages, call logs, and real-time location data.
A copy of the database was obtained by the nonprofit transparency group DDoSecrets, which indexed the leaked dataset in the public interest, and shared it with TechCrunch for analysis.
Data shows that until recently, LetMeSpy was used to steal data from more than 13,000 infected Android devices around the world, although LetMeSpy's website claimed to control more than 236,000 devices before the leak.
The database also contained information showing that the spyware was developed by a Krakow-based technology company called Radeal.
LetMeSpy is the latest spyware operation to be shut down last year by a security incident that exposed victims' data as well as the identities of its real operators.
Spytrac, a spyware with a database of over 1 million user records, has been verified to be run by Support King.
Support King, a technology company, was banned from the surveillance industry by federal regulators in 2021 after it previously failed to secure data stolen from its then-flagship spyware.