Stalkerware

And that list includes...

Spyware, Trojans, Adware, Malvertising, Pop-ups, Viruses, Hijacking, Ransomware, Worms, Keyloggers, Rootkits, Rogue Software, Backdoors, Scareware, Quickware, Stalkerware, and Fleeceware.

And all that other good stuff.

Okay, our show comes with three things to know and special warnings.

The information they want may already be inside the object you carry with you everywhere in your pocket.

Stalkerware generally refers to commercially available surveillance software in applications that can be installed and configured to monitor another person's device without that person's meaningful knowledge and consent.

Depending on the software, the permissions it obtains, capabilities can include collecting location information, messages, photographs, browsing activity, call information, social media activity, and other personal sensitive data.

Now, the Federal Trade Commission describes stalkerware as applications and programs that can secretly track a device and online activity.

This makes stalkerware a particularly interesting cybersecurity problem because the threat model is different from the stereotypical hacker that we see in movies.

Cybersecurity often imagines the attacker as an outsider trying to get in.

Stalkerware forces us to consider the attacker who may already have been inside.

The research by Karen Levy and Bruce Schneier describes what they call intimate threats, privacy threats arising within close relationships in which another person may know personal information, know security answers, possess physical access to devices, or understand routines that an unknown attacker from the outside would first have to discover through knowing you or knowing the person they wanna be stalking.