Councillor found guilty in spyware case

A councillor from Greenville County, South Carolina, who was convicted this week of spying on fellow council workers’ PCs, could face up to 16 years in jail.

Tony Trout was arrested last October, after infecting PCs with the RemoteSpy program, which allowed him to break into two Yahoo email accounts used by Greenvile County Administrator Joe Kernell.

According to media reports, information stolen by Trout from the compromised email accounts on his website at www.tonytrout.com, and shared the information with other councillors and legal officials.

In his defence, Trout claimed that he was investigating Kernell as a service to the taxpaying public, believing he could be involved…

Read more in my article on the Naked Security website.

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Graham Cluley •   @gcluley

Graham Cluley is a veteran of the cybersecurity industry, having worked for a number of security companies since the early 1990s when he wrote the first ever version of Dr Solomon's Anti-Virus Toolkit for Windows. Now an independent analyst, he regularly makes media appearances and is an international public speaker on the topic of cybersecurity, hackers, and online privacy. Follow him on Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky, or drop him an email.