The software is distributed by the German company TeamViewer GmbH, which was founded in Göppingen, Germany in 2005. As of 2018, TeamViewer has local representations in Australia and the United States. Two outside investments were placed in TeamViewer since 2010. The Durham, North Carolina-based company GFI Software acquired a majority stake in TeamViewer in 2010. The London-based private equity firmPermira took over GFI's stake in TeamViewer in 2014. In 2020, TeamViewer software has seen significant extra demand caused by the COVID-19 lockdown and the shift of millions of people to remote work.
TeamViewer and similar services have been used to commit technical support scams via telephone calls. People are called, either at random or from a list, by criminals claiming to represent a computer support service that has identified the victim's computer as being infected by malware, most often using the name of companies such as Microsoft. They then ask the victim to give them access to their computer by installing a remote control service, which can allow the attacker to infect the computer with malware or to delete or copy personal files or to pretend to have removed malware for which they charge a fee. A Wired journalist investigating the scams was asked by a scammer to install TeamViewer. It was reported that ransomware programs were utilizing TeamViewer as a tool to obtain remote access to infected machines. In the United Kingdom, the Internet service providerTalkTalk blocked many remote access tools to protect its customers from remote service scams. They remain blocked as of 2019.
Account access misuse and possible breach
In June 2016, hundreds of TeamViewer users reported having their computers accessed by an unauthorized address in China and bank accounts misappropriated. TeamViewer attributed the outcome to user's "careless password use" and denied all responsibility, saying "neither was TeamViewer hacked nor is there a security hole, TeamViewer is safe to use and has proper security measures in place. Our evidence points to careless use as the cause of the reported issue, a few extra steps will prevent potential abuse." Following the reported misuse, TeamViewer went offline several hours due to a denial-of-service attack. The outage kept users from remotely logging into their computers. The company published a statement on its Web site summarizing the events and giving guidance in how users can protect themselves. TeamViewer referred to previous LinkedIn, Tumblr, and MySpace security breaches where millions of email and password pairs were hacked and the stolen login passwords were reused by the TeamViewer accounts of the victims. Teamviewer also claimed in the same statement that they do "not store any password-equivalent data".. Following this event, TeamViewer launched additional security measures, namely Trusted Devices and enforced TeamViewer account password reset, to improve the security. Throughout the ordeal, TeamViewer has maintained that it is not at fault for the account thefts. The Germany-based company's handling of the matter has brought harsh criticism from aggrieved customers, who accuse the company of being in "complete denial" of the problem.
Adult services
In July 2018, The Register reported the widespread use of TeamViewer in the BDSM scene for HD live video sessions, following the observation that many posts on Twitter exist where these kinds of services are offered.
