Creepy Details About Fruitfly Spyware Come Out After Its Creator’s Arrest

The 28-year-old Ohio man responsible for the creepy spyware Fruitfly was caught Wednesday, 13 years after he initially started installing the malware to computers. The U.S. Department of Justice claims the malware was installed on thousands of computers, and as Mashable reports, those included Macs, too.

Phillip Durachinsky has been indicted on 16 counts for wiretapping, identity theft, and other computer fraud violations, as well as producing child pornography. The DOJ claims Durachinsky “orchestrated a scheme” to gain access to thousands of computers owned by all kinds of people, including individuals, companies, schools, a police department, and the government itself; one of the computers affected belonged to a subsidiary of the U.S. Department of Energy.

Durachinsky's malware, which was later named “Fruitfly,” gave him the ability to control computers and access to stored data, allowing him to upload files, take and download screenshots, log a user’s keystrokes, and turn on the camera and the microphone to record images and audio. He would then steal personal data from his victims, including login details, tax records, medical records, photographs, banking records, Internet searches, and “potentially embarrassing communications.” Fruitfly was installed on computers from 2003 to January 2017.

But Durachinsky was a lot creepier than that. The DOJ further accuses him of illicitly watching and listening to his victims and intercepting conversations taking place in the room where the infected computers were located. The malware program would also alert him if a user typed words associated with pornography. Moreover, he saved millions of images and kept detailed notes of what he discovered.

“Durachinsky is alleged to have utilized his sophisticated cyber skills with ill intent, compromising numerous systems and individual computers,” said Special Agent in Charge Stephen D. Anthony. “The FBI would like to commend the compromised entities that brought this to the attention of law enforcement authorities. It is this kind of collaboration that has enabled authorities to bring this cyber hacker to justice.”