The Hanoi People’s Court delivered a 24-month prison sentence to Nguyen Viet Hung, mastermind of a massive mobile spying incident that affected over 14,000 mobile subscribers, on May 7.

The 41-year-old former Vice Director of the Viet Hong Company in Hanoi was charged with “illegally using information in computer networks, communications networks, Internet” as stated in Article 226 of the Penal Code.

The same charge was applied to six other employees of Viet Hong Company, Le Thanh Lam, Nguyen Van Tuan, Nguyen Ngoc Kieu, Le Sy Phan, Tran Minh Ngoc and Nguyen Thi Nga, all of whom were granted 12-20 month suspended sentences.

According to the verdict, the Viet Hong Company, based in Hanoi’s Thanh Xuan District with its IT and telecom services headed by Nguyen Viet Hung, developed and sold two types of spy mobile software since June 2013: the Ptracker app for individuals and PtrackerERP app for businesses.

The apps allow users to track other people's Android phones, read their SMS messages and contact books and record their phone calls without their knowledge.

The apps can even turn on features like camera, 3G or GPRS connections of the target devices from the tracking phone.

The stolen information was archived on Viet Hong's servers and accessed by using a paid account to log in to the company's website.

The company provided Ptracker to 14,140 subscribers for nearly 1 billion VND (over 46,000 USD). As many as 7,447 subscribers to the illegal service are still registered in the servers of the company, and 670 of the accounts are valid.

VNA