[turtle]

I personally never used it but did consider it a few times. Seems they sold their software to a company that openly tells you it is malware now, well at least a botnet terminal.

LifeHacker article on it.

Web developer Taylor Robinson noticed NightOwl had been sold to a new company, “TPE.FYI LLC.” While that by itself isn’t necessarily alarming, Robinson discovered the new owners changed NightOwl’s terms of service: Now, the app automatically adds your computer to a botnet for “market research.” If you have a newer version of NightOwl installed, you will notice that the app runs a launch agent on your Mac, seemingly to automatically update it. Robinson notes this launch agent is doing a lot more than just checking for updates and reporting crashes. You can check out the blog post to see the technical details of how the app adds you to a botnet.

[drewprops]

Well now.

How often should we expect this attack vector to occur? Small time software vendors have probably been compromised before.

...

[turtle]

Not compromised, sold out to malware.

[chucker]

This happens a lot with browser extensions. Developers eventually realize they want the money more than they want the users.

Seems to be one of the first big cases on the Mac.

Now… Apple wold of course argue that this is exactly the kind of thing the App Store protects against…