Virtually every website selling products or services features a live chat widget. It usually appears as a small window in the corner of your screen, complete with an agent’s name and picture.

Sometimes these chats simply collect tickets for tech support or sales to process. But often there’s a real person on the other end of the screen. And here’s where many users get an unwelcome surprise: agents can see absolutely everything you type into the chat box, even if you have no intention of sending it. In this article, we break down why this happens and what you can do about it.

All in the name of customer experience

It’s all thanks to a feature known as live typing preview, or real-time typing view, which exists under one name or another in almost every popular customer chat platform. Here’s how the developer of LiveAgent, a customer support system used by more than 40 000 companies, describes it in its blog: “This live chat typing preview allows agents to anticipate questions and deliver faster responses. Additionally, real-time chat monitoring enables supervisors to oversee chat interactions, ensuring quality and timeliness.”

While that might sound helpful and harmless to some, having their unsent messages watched without their permission can trigger outright panic for others. To make matters worse, it’s almost impossible to tell whether the website uses the feature. That is, unless the chat agent admits it to you directly… or replies to a message you decided not to send.

As an alternative, you can run a quick test: type out a message in the chat box, wait 15 seconds, and see if the agent starts typing a response. If they do, you’re almost certainly dealing with real-time typing view. Whether to continue that conversation is up to you. Most importantly, never type personal information into a chat box — even if you are doing so from a Kaspersky Premium device.

Real-time typing view is just the tip of the iceberg. In reality, websites collect far more information than you might think. You’re likely already familiar with cookies, and have probably asked yourself at least once, “Should I accept these or not?” We answer that and other questions in our post Taking the biscuit: why hackers like cookies so much.

Tracking techniques that use web beacons and tracking pixels are not as widely known. To learn why they’re a concern and how to turn them off, check out our post Who is tracking you on the web and how.

Another technology that remains largely unknown to the general public is session replay scripts. These tools allow website owners to watch a recording of your visit: how fast you moved your cursor, where you clicked, which pages you browsed, and what you added to your shopping cart.

Of course, the primary goal of session replay is the same as real-time typing view: improving customer and user experience. It helps companies analyze your behavior, identify friction points, and make improvements. If a customer fails to complete a checkout or encounters a technical issue, developers can review the recording of their session to pinpoint what went wrong.

In theory, it sounds helpful enough: “We will collect a small amount of data about you to make the site better for you.” In practice, however, this approach comes with significant risks for users.

What’s the catch?

The primary risk here lies in whether websites collect this data legally, how they store it, and whether they share it with anyone. While you can usually gauge legality by reading their privacy policy, the terms of data storage and sharing are often described vaguely.

On top of that, users rarely realize an agent can read their message before it’s actually sent. If you change your mind about asking a question, edit a sentence, or delete your text entirely, that doesn’t mean no one saw the draft. Unlike cookies, opting out of this technology is practically impossible. Most chat widgets simply don’t offer a setting to disable typing previews.

As for tracking pixels, web beacons, and session replays, they’re essentially a form of digital surveillance. Beyond collecting vast amounts of data, they can also slow down your device’s performance. Even worse, if attackers compromise a website’s analytics system, they can gain access to this data, reconstruct your path through the site, and uncover details that can be leveraged in future attacks. To learn more about how scammers pull off these tricks and how social engineering works, check out our post They’re reading you like a book: scammers’ favorite tricks.

While you can’t prevent a potential breach on a third-party website, you can — and should — take steps to secure your own browsing session.

What you can do about it

First and foremost, pay close attention to what you type in a chat box. It’s critical never to share personal data, credit card numbers, logins, passwords, or any other sensitive information with live chat agents.

Beyond that, there’s always a risk of landing on a phishing site and entering your account credentials there. To prevent this, we recommend using our security solutions, which block visits to malicious and suspicious websites. We also suggest storing your credentials in Kaspersky Password Manager — our password manager won’t let you auto-fill saved logins and passwords on a fake site.

Users of Kaspersky Standard, Kaspersky Plus, and Kaspersky Premium have access to our Private Browsing feature (on Windows and macOS). It prevents third-party services from tracking your online activity and collecting real-time information about what you do on websites.

To minimize the risk of data leaks, keep these tips in mind:

• Never type anything into a chat box that you aren’t prepared to send. On almost every website, the agent can see your text while you type, so deleting a message is no guarantee it stays private.
• Keep in mind that your activity on a website may be recorded. These recordings can capture your clicks, page navigation, and form inputs. Treat every website as if your actions are being watched.
• Pay attention to privacy policies. Reputable companies typically state whether they use analytics tools, session recording, or third-party support services.
• Approach chat interactions with caution. Real-life rules apply here as well: never share verification codes, passwords, phone numbers, or other sensitive details in a chat.
• Be smart about accepting cookies. Taking a moment to check what information a website collects is well worth the effort — it helps you make an informed choice about whether you’re comfortable sharing that data.

Tired of endless digital tracking? Here’s how you can protect yourself and your data:

• How to shrink your digital footprint
• Why data brokers build dossiers on you, and how to stop them doing so
• Turning purple: how visited links threaten your privacy
• How smartphones build a dossier on you
• The incognito myth: how private browsing really works
• Advertisers sharing data about you with… intelligence agencies

A breakup is a major upheaval — the kind that turns life upside down. The familiar order of things, where two people shared the same interests, moments, and often even the same physical space, collapses in an instant, leaving each of you in a world of your own.

Besides that, couples are connected not just in real life, but digitally too. Shared subscriptions, saved addresses and passwords, access to joint cloud storage — all of that used to be woven into your day-to-day life. Moving on emotionally can take a long time, sure, but there are steps you can take right now that will tighten up your security — even if they won’t help you get over your ex.

Here’s what you need to check after a breakup, which services to disconnect, and why you should do it even if the split was amicable.

Digital hygiene: your insurance policy

Cutting off your ex’s access to your online accounts isn’t paranoia — it’s looking out for your own security. A breakup doesn’t automatically sever your digital ties: any access you granted each other during the relationship stays active until someone manually shuts it down. Most of the time, nobody’s plotting to actually exploit it, yet it can still lead to anything from awkward moments to a genuine risk of being tracked.

Take Aleta Dignard-Fung, of Las Vegas, who told NPR that after breaking up with her boyfriend, it didn’t immediately occur to her that he still knew her Spotify password. One day, in the shower with music playing, she noticed her playlist suddenly switch. Her ex had logged in from another device and started playing his own chosen tracks. “It was just kind of like the Spotify wars, and we’d just spend like 10 minutes trying to override each other’s songs,” she admitted. But the fallout isn’t always this lighthearted.

Relationship coach Susan Winter shared a case from her own practice in that same interview. One of her clients simply couldn’t let go of his ex-girlfriend after their breakup. The two had shared an OpenTable account — the restaurant reservation service — and she’d never revoked his access. He started tracking her bookings: where she was going, what time, how many people. That’s how he kept tabs on whether someone new had entered her life.

These two stories, while showing very different behavior from the exes involved, both trace back to the same root cause: accounts that were never properly locked down. In the former case, it led to an awkward moment. In the latter, it led to anxiety and a real sense of being watched. To make sure neither scenario happens to you, it’s worth running through a quick checklist.

Terminate your partner’s sessions

In the settings for your social media, messaging apps, email, and other key services, pull up the list of active sessions and log out everything except your current devices.

Change your passwords

Update the passwords to any key accounts your partner might have known — say, if you used a meaningful date as your password. If you reused the same password across multiple services, change it everywhere. While you’re at it, review your security questions and your backup email or phone number for account recovery — neither should still be tied to your ex. To skip the hassle of memorizing new credentials while still leveling up your security, we recommend using a password manager — it’ll generate a unique, strong password for every account, and save and sync it across all your devices; the only thing you need to remember is a single main password.

Check two-factor authentication and trusted devices

Make sure verification codes only go to your own device. Remove your partner’s devices from your trusted list — you can do this in your Apple and Google account settings.

Split up your shared Apple/Google accounts

If you shared an Apple or Google account, sign out of that. Turn off Family Sharing, iCloud, and backups. Check your shared photo albums too — anything that lands there automatically is visible to your ex as well.

Review your subscriptions

If you shared subscriptions — streaming services, family plans, that kind of thing — cancel them or set up new ones and link your own card.

Check your bank cards

If your ex’s card is linked to a marketplace, delivery app, or rideshare service account you own, remove it from your saved payment methods. If your card is linked to their account and you no longer have access to it, the safest move is to just get your card reissued.

Revoke smart home access

Cut off your ex’s access to cameras, video doorbells, GPS trackers, and smart speakers. If the devices were on a shared account, change the password or move them over to your own personal account.

Review your privacy settings

Check the privacy settings across your accounts on various services and social media using our free online tool, Privacy Checker. It walks you through a privacy configuration tailored to your operating system, platform, and even your browser.

If you notice signs of stalking

Reach out to advocacy or legal aid organizations — they can help you map out the best course of action. It’s also worth leaning on family and close friends who can support you through a tough situation. On Android devices, you can use our security suite with the Who’s Spying on Me feature. It’s designed to help you detect tracking and stalking so you can take the right steps to protect yourself. The feature includes:

• Stalkerware Detection. Flags apps designed to secretly monitor your life and collect data you’d never want shared with anyone else.
• Device Scanner. Finds planted trackers that let someone follow your movements and always know where you are.
• Permissions Control. Shows which apps have access to permissions that could make it easier for someone to spy on you or compromise your privacy.

What can actually help — and what might make things worse — during this difficult time? Check out our other posts:

• Love, AI & robots
• What happens in the bedroom stays in the bedroom
• How chatting with a bot can lead to tragedy
• AI and the new reality of sextortion
• Digital detox: How to take a safe break from screens
• Subscription security: how to protect your account, your wallet… and your sanity

April 7 marks World Health Day. The theme for 2026 is “Together for health. Stand with science” — a call to join forces in the fight for evidence-based medicine and scientific progress. Many people view telehealth as one of the crowning achievements of this progress: you can basically get a doctor’s consultation in five minutes without ever leaving your couch. But there’s a catch…

Medical data sells on the black or gray markets for dozens of times more than credit card info or social media logins. Unlike a credit card, which you can just block and replace, you can’t exactly reset your medical history. Your name, birthday, address, phone number, insurance ID, diagnoses, test results, prescriptions, and treatment plans stay relevant for years. This is a goldmine for everything from targeted marketing to blackmail, fraud, or identity theft.

And with the rise of AI, the internet is now flooded with fake websites that claim to offer medical services but are actually designed to strip-mine confidential info from unsuspecting victims. Today, we’re diving into which medical details are at risk, why hackers want them, and how you can stop them in their tracks.

More valuable than credit cards

Scammers monetize stolen medical data both in bulk and through individual sales. Their first move is usually to extort a ransom from the companies they’ve successfully hacked. (In fact, back in 2024, 91% of malware-related healthcare data leaks in the U.S. were the result of ransomware attacks.) But later, the leaked data is then used for pinpointed, personal attacks. It allows hackers to build a medical profile of a victim — what meds they buy, how often, and what they take long-term — to then sell that info to big pharma or marketers, or to use it for targeted phishing scams like pitching a fake innovative treatment. They can even blackmail a patient over a sensitive diagnosis or use the info to fraudulently score prescriptions for controlled substances. On top of that, insurance companies are also hungry for this kind of data. They analyze these details to hike up insurance premiums for patients or, in some cases, refuse to provide coverage altogether. In short, there are plenty of ways they can use it against you.

How bad is it really?

The biggest medical data breach in history went down in February 2024, when the BlackCat hacking group broke into the systems of Change Healthcare. This is a division of UnitedHealth Group, which processes around 15 billion insurance transactions a year and acts as the financial middleman between patients, healthcare providers, and insurance companies.

For nine days, the attackers roamed freely through Change Healthcare’s internal systems, siphoning off six terabytes of confidential data before finally launching their ransomware. UnitedHealth was forced to completely yank Change Healthcare datacenters offline to stop the encryptor from spreading, and they ended up paying a 22-million-dollar ransom to the extortionists. The attack effectively paralyzed the U.S. healthcare system. The number of victims was revised three times: first 100 million, then 190 million, and the final tally hit a staggering 192.7 million people, with total damages estimated at 2.9 billion dollars. And the reason (on the Change Healthcare’s side) for this massive incident — which we broke down in detail in a separate post — was simply… a lack of two-factor authentication on a remote desktop access portal.

Before that, the mental health telehealth startup Cerebral embedded third-party tracking tools directly into its website and apps. As a result, the data of 3.2 million patients — including names, medical and prescription histories, and insurance info — leaked out to LinkedIn, Snapchat, and TikTok. The U.S. Federal Trade Commission slapped the company with a 7.1-million-dollar fine, and issued an unprecedented ban on using medical data for advertising purposes. By the way, that same startup also made the headlines for sending its clients promotional postcards without envelopes, displaying patient names and phrasing that made it easy for anyone to figure out their diagnosis.

Why telehealth is so vulnerable

Let’s take a look at the main weak spots in telehealth services.

• Ad trackers in medical apps. Trackers from Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, and other tech giants are often baked right into telehealth platforms, leaking patient data to advertisers without users ever knowing.
• Unsecured communication channels. Sometimes doctors chat with patients through regular messaging apps instead of certified medical platforms. It’s convenient, sure, but it’s illegal for the clinic and totally unsafe for the patient.
• Platform vulnerabilities. Telemedicine platforms are prone to classic web attacks, such as SQL injections that let hackers dump entire patient databases, session hijacking, and data interception when connection encryption is weak or nonexistent.
• Poor staff training. Our research showed that 30% of doctors have dealt with compromised patient data specifically during telehealth sessions, and 42% of medical staff don’t actually understand how their patients’ data is being protected.
• Outdated medical devices. Many wearable medical gadgets (like heart monitors or blood pressure cuffs) use an old data transfer protocol called MQTT. It’s full of holes that could potentially allow hackers to steal sensitive info or even mess with how the device functions.

Spam and phishing in telehealth

Hackers aren’t the only ones interested in the medical field — spammers and scammers are all over it, too. They pitch “medical services” with deals that look way too good to be true, send out emails about supposed changes to your health insurance, or talk up “ancient Himalayan healing traditions”. Of course, all the links they send lead to suspicious websites offering dubious goods or services.

Should you land on such a phishing site, scammers will try to squeeze every bit of private info they can out of you: photos of your ID, insurance policy, prescriptions, and sometimes even… photos of body parts that supposedly need medical attention. From there, this data can be dumped and sold on the dark web — or used for blackmail, extortion, and follow-up phishing attacks. To learn more about how the underground data assembly line works, check out our post, What happens to data stolen using phishing?

As a rule of thumb, fake clinic sites usually skip the privacy policy section, and bombard you with “today only” deals that seem too good to be true. That said, with the help of AI, creating a professional-looking site that’s indistinguishable from the real thing is now a total breeze: you don’t even need design skills or fluency in the victim’s language. That’s exactly why we recommend using our comprehensive security suite — it’s designed to sniff out spam, scams and phishing, and warn you about fake websites before you land on them.

Safety tips for telehealth patients

• Set up a dedicated email address for medical services. If this address leaks because a clinic gets hacked, it makes it much harder for scammers to track the rest of your digital life.
• Avoid using Google, Apple, or social media sign-in for telehealth sites. Keeping things separate makes it way tougher to link your medical data to your personal accounts.
• Double-check which platform is being used for your consultation. If the clinic suggests a call or chat through a standard messaging app, that’s a red flag. A secure, encrypted patient portal provided by the clinic is significantly safer.
• Never send medical documents via chat apps or social media. Always upload lab results, scans, and records through the clinic’s official patient portal.
• Use a unique, complex password for every account. Your government portal, clinic login, and doctor-booking app should each have a separate password. Kaspersky Password Manager can generate and store all of them for you; it also regularly scans leak databases, and alerts you if any of your accounts are compromised.
• Turn on two-factor authentication. Do this first of all for government services and medical organizations. We recommend using an authenticator app rather than SMS codes: it’s more secure and totally anonymous. Kaspersky Password Manager can help you out here, too.
• Share only what’s necessary. Don’t feel obligated to fill out every optional field in medical apps or on websites. The less data a service stores, the less there is to leak.
• Be careful about sharing health info on social media or in chat apps. Scammers love to exploit people when they’re vulnerable. For instance, in 2024, hackers gained the trust of the XZ Utils developer who had publicly posted about burnout and depression. They convinced him to hand over control of his tool, which they then loaded with malicious code. Since XZ Utils is used in tons of Linux systems and affects OpenSSH (a protocol for remote server connections), the attack could have wrecked a huge chunk of the internet if it hadn’t been caught in time.
• Don’t install telehealth apps from unknown developers. Check the reviews and take a minute to skim the privacy policy — even major platforms might be sharing your data with third parties.
• Keep an eye on your medical records. Strange prescriptions, doctor visits you never made, or meds you’ve never heard of can all be signs that your account has been compromised.
• Configure and regularly update your health gadgets. Fitness trackers, blood pressure monitors, smart scales, and activity trackers all send data to the web. Improper settings or unpatched vulnerabilities are an open door for data breaches.

What else you need to know about protecting your health online:

• Brain drain: vulnerabilities in mental health apps
• Why data brokers build dossiers on you, and how to stop them doing so
• How chatting with a bot can lead to tragedy
• Privacy in reproductive health apps
• Five problems of telehealth

Cybersecurity researchers have taken a close look at the inner workings of the Predator spyware, developed by the Cyprus-based company Intellexa. Rather than focusing on how the spyware initially infects a device, this latest research zooms in on how the malware behaves once a device has already been compromised.

The most fascinating discovery involves the mechanisms the Trojan uses to hide iOS camera and microphone indicators. By doing so, it can covertly spy on the infected user. In today’s post, we break down what Predator spyware actually is, how the iOS indicator system is designed to work, and how this malware manages to disable these indicators.

What Predator is, how it works, and what… Alien has to do with it

We previously took a deep dive into the most notorious commercial spyware out there in a dedicated feature — where we discussed the star of today’s post, Predator, among the others. You can check out that earlier post for a detailed review of this spyware, but for now, here’s a quick refresher on the essentials.

Predator was originally developed by a North Macedonian company named Cytrox. It was later acquired by the aforementioned Intellexa, a Cyprus-registered firm owned by a former Israeli intelligence officer — a truly international spy games collaboration.

Strictly speaking, Predator is the second half of a spyware duo designed to monitor iOS and Android users. The first component is named Alien; it’s responsible for compromising a device and installing Predator. As you might’ve guessed, these pieces of malware are named after the famous Alien vs. Predator franchise.

An attack using Intellexa’s software typically begins with a message containing a malicious link. When the victim clicks it, they’re directed to a site that leverages a chain of browser and OS vulnerabilities to infect the device. To keep things looking normal and avoid raising suspicion, the user is then redirected to a legitimate website.

Besides Alien, Intellexa offers several other delivery vehicles for landing Predator on a target’s device. These include the Mars and Jupiter systems, which are installed on the service provider’s side to infect devices through a man-in-the-middle attack.

Predator spyware for iOS comes packed with a wide array of surveillance tools. Most notably, it can record and transmit data from the device’s camera and microphone. Naturally, to keep the user from catching on to this suspicious activity, the system’s built-in recording indicators — the green and orange dots at the top of the screen — must be disabled. While it’s been known for some time that Predator could somehow hide these alerts, it’s only thanks to this research that we know how exactly it pulls it off.

How the iOS camera and microphone indicator system works

To understand how Predator disables these indicators, we first need to look at how iOS handles them. Since the release of iOS 14 in 2020, Apple devices have alerted users whenever the microphone or camera is active by displaying an orange or green dot at the top of the screen. If both are running simultaneously, only the green dot is shown.

Just like other iOS user interface elements, recording indicators are managed by a process called SpringBoard, which is responsible for the device’s system-wide UI. When an app starts using the camera or microphone, the system registers the change in that specific module’s state. This activity data is then gathered by an internal system component, which passes the information to SpringBoard for processing. Once SpringBoard receives word that the camera or microphone is active, it toggles the green or orange dot on or off based on that data.

From an app’s perspective, the process works like this: first, the app requests permission to access the camera or microphone through the standard iOS permission mechanism. When the app actually needs to use one or both of these modules, it calls the iOS system API. If the user has granted permission, iOS activates the requested module and automatically updates the status indicator. These indicators are strictly controlled by the operating system; third-party apps have no direct access to them.

How Predator interferes with the iOS camera and microphone indicators

Cybersecurity researchers analyzed a captured version of Predator and uncovered traces of multiple techniques used by the spyware’s creators to bypass built-in iOS mechanisms and disable recording indicators.

In the first approach — which appears to have been used during early development — the malware attempted to interfere with the indicators at the display stage right after SpringBoard received word that the camera or microphone was active. However, this method was likely deemed too complex and unreliable by the developers. As a result, this specific function remains in the Trojan as dead code — it’s never actually executed.

Ultimately, Predator settled on a simpler, more effective method that operates at the very level where the system receives data about the camera or microphone being turned on. To do this, Predator intercepts the communication between SpringBoard and the specific component responsible for collecting activity data from these modules.

By exploiting the specific characteristics of Objective-C — the programming language used to write the SpringBoard application — the malware completely blocks the signals indicating that the camera or microphone has been activated. As a result, SpringBoard never receives the signal that the module’s status has changed, so it never triggers the recording indicators.

How to lower your risk of spyware infection

Predator-grade spyware is quite expensive, and typically reserved for high-stakes industrial or state-sponsored espionage. On one hand, this means defending against such a high-tier threat is difficult — and achieving 100% protection is likely impossible. On the other hand, for these same reasons, the average user is statistically unlikely to be targeted.

However, if you’ve reason to believe you’re at risk from Predator or Pegasus-class spyware, here are a few steps you can take to make an attacker’s job much harder:

• Don’t click suspicious links from unknown senders.
• Regularly update your operating system, browsers, and messaging apps.
• Reboot your device occasionally. A simple restart can often help “lose the tail”, forcing attackers to reinfect the device from scratch.
• Install a reliable security solution on all the devices you use.

For a deeper dive into staying safe, check out security expert Costin Raiu’s post: Staying safe from Pegasus, Chrysaor and other APT mobile malware.

Curious about other ways your smartphone might be used to spy on you? Check out our related posts:

• How smartphones build a dossier on you
• Are your Bluetooth headphones spying on you?
• How to track anyone via the Find My network
• How to stop being tracked via Bluetooth beacons like AirTag
• Operation Triangulation: the most sophisticated iOS spyware we’ve ever found

A newly discovered vulnerability named WhisperPair can turn Bluetooth headphones and headsets from many well-known brands into personal tracking beacons — regardless of whether the accessories are currently connected to an iPhone, Android smartphone, or even a laptop. Even though the technology behind this flaw was originally developed by Google for Android devices, the tracking risks are actually much higher for those using vulnerable headsets with other operating systems — like iOS, macOS, Windows, or Linux. For iPhone owners, this is especially concerning.

Connecting Bluetooth headphones to Android smartphones became a whole lot faster when Google rolled out Fast Pair, a technology now used by dozens of accessory manufacturers. To pair a new headset, you just turn it on and hold it near your phone. If your device is relatively modern (produced after 2019), a pop-up appears inviting you to connect and download the accompanying app, if it exists. One tap, and you’re good to go.

Unfortunately, it seems quite a few manufacturers didn’t pay attention to the particulars of this tech when implementing it, and now their accessories can be hijacked by a stranger’s smartphone in seconds — even if the headset isn’t actually in pairing mode. This is the core of the WhisperPair vulnerability, recently discovered by researchers at KU Leuven and recorded as CVE-2025-36911.

The attacking device — which can be a standard smartphone, tablet or laptop — broadcasts Google Fast Pair requests to any Bluetooth devices within a 14-meter radius. As it turns out, a long list of headphones from Sony, JBL, Redmi, Anker, Marshall, Jabra, OnePlus, and even Google itself (the Pixel Buds 2) will respond to these pings even when they aren’t looking to pair. On average, the attack takes just 10 seconds.

Once the headphones are paired, the attacker can do pretty much anything the owner can: listen in through the microphone, blast music, or — in some cases — locate the headset on a map if it supports Google Find Hub. That latter feature, designed strictly for finding lost headphones, creates a perfect opening for stealthy remote tracking. And here’s the twist: it’s actually most dangerous for Apple users and anyone else rocking non-Android hardware.

Remote tracking and the risks for iPhones

When headphones or a headset first shake hands with an Android device via the Fast Pair protocol, an owner key tied to that smartphone’s Google account is tucked away in the accessory’s memory. This info allows the headphones to be found later by leveraging data collected from millions of Android devices. If any random smartphone spots the target device nearby via Bluetooth, it reports its location to the Google servers. This feature — Google Find Hub — is essentially the Android version of Apple’s Find My, and it introduces the same unauthorized tracking risks as a rogue AirTag.

When an attacker hijacks the pairing, their key can be saved as the headset owner’s key — but only if the headset targeted via WhisperPair hasn’t previously been linked to an Android device and has only been used with an iPhone, or other hardware like a laptop with a different OS. Once the headphones are paired, the attacker can stalk their location on a map at their leisure — crucially, anywhere at all (not just within the 14-meter range).

Android users who’ve already used Fast Pair to link their vulnerable headsets are safe from this specific move, since they’re already logged in as the official owners. Everyone else, however, should probably double-check their manufacturer’s documentation to see if they’re in the clear — thankfully, not every device vulnerable to the exploit actually supports Google Find Hub.

How to neutralize the WhisperPair threat

The only truly effective way to fix this bug is to update your headphones’ firmware, provided an update is actually available. You can typically check for and install updates through the headset’s official companion app. The researchers have compiled a list of vulnerable devices on their site, but it’s almost certainly not exhaustive.

After updating the firmware, you absolutely must perform a factory reset to wipe the list of paired devices — including any unwanted guests.

If no firmware update is available and you’re using your headset with iOS, macOS, Windows, or Linux, your only remaining option is to track down an Android smartphone (or find a trusted friend who has one) and use it to reserve the role of the original owner. This will prevent anyone else from adding your headphones to Google Find Hub behind your back.

The update from Google

In January 2026, Google pushed an Android update to patch the vulnerability on the OS side. Unfortunately, the specifics haven’t been made public, so we’re left guessing exactly what they tweaked under the hood. Most likely, updated smartphones will no longer report the location of accessories hijacked via WhisperPair to the Google Find Hub network. But given that not everyone is exactly speedy when it comes to installing Android updates, it’s a safe bet that this type of headset tracking will remain viable for at least another couple of years.

Want to find out how else your gadgets might be spying on you? Check out these posts:

• How to protect yourself from Bluetooth stalking and more
• How to track anyone via the Find My network
• How to stop being tracked via Bluetooth beacons like AirTag
• How smartphones build a dossier on you
• Why data brokers build dossiers on you, and how to stop them doing so