The Federal Trade Commission has reached a settlement that bars a Florida firm from marketing and selling keylogging spyware that illegally monitors users’ computer activities.
The permanent injunction comes more than a year and a half after the FTC first filed suit against CyberSpy Software and its owner, Tracer Spence.
CyberSpy had promoted the RemoteSpy keylogger spyware as a “100 percent” undetectable method of monitoring people’s keystrokes and snagging passwords, Web browsing activities and images of their computer screens, according to court documents filed by the FTC.
Additionally, the complaint alleged that the firm had provided its customers with detailed instructions for disguising the spyware as an innocuous attachment to an e-mail that would be automatically downloaded and installed on the victims’ computers once they opened it.