Privacy Nightmare: Employee Monitoring App Leaks Millions Of Screenshots

A recent report has revealed that an employee surveillance app has been leaking sensitive information about employees and companies in a public storage resource, which raises the question as to the extent to which employers should be allowed to access employees' private data.

WorkComposer is a surveillance app that helps companies monitor employees' activities by tracking the websites and applications that employees use, and also taking screenshots of their computer screens. However, in a reported privacy breach, over 20 million screenshots from this app have been found in a public cloud storage resource. These screenshots contain various sensitive information about employees' daily activities, as well as confidential information about their employer's company.

Although the public cloud storage resource has now been secured, it would have been a goldmine for malicious actors as it makes their jobs easier. Instead of having to deploy social engineering tactics and waiting for victims to fall into their malware traps, they would have been able to access login credentials, seed phrases, banking details, and confidential conversations without any hassle.

We recently reported a number of spyware programs deployed to monitor victims' smartphone activities, only to be hijacked by hackers who were also accessing victims' phones. In those incidents, both the stalker and their victims were being targeted in the attacks. It's similar to this report as well, not only are employees getting their data compromised, but their stalkers(employers) are also getting their company's internal secrets exposed.


Although the idea of getting to know what others are doing on their computers or smartphones may sound attractive, a good number of these spy apps are becoming a target for malicious actors. Therefore, while some employers may claim that monitoring apps will help to boost productivity and may even have a legal basis for using them, it may not always achieve the desired result and could even introduce more problems, as in this case.

There is a need to balance the need for productivity and the requirement for privacy. If the latter is sacrificed for the former, resulting in employees' data leaks, it could lead to a double-edged sword, which could affect both employers and employees.