The scourge of stalkerware—malicious apps used by perpetrators of domestic violence to secretly spy on their victims—is not going unchallenged or unaddressed.
Antivirus makers are increasingly adding stalkerware to the list of apps their products detect on devices; victim support groups help people figure out whether their devices are infected and how to remove the apps; app stores are banning the software and pulling any advertising for it, and law enforcement is investigating and arresting stalkerware makers and their customers.
Now, in a welcome step to make it easier for people to detect a family of stalkerware apps investigated by researcher Zack Whittaker, online tech news site TechCrunch has launched a free spyware lookup tool that allows people to check if their Android device is on a leaked list of compromised devices. These apps can be covertly loaded onto devices or laptops, allowing perpetrators to monitor in real time users’ private messages, voicemails, internet browsing, passwords, and location data, all without their knowledge or consent.
Using a device other than the one that might be infected, users can enter certain identification numbers—IMEI or unique advertising ID numbers, both of which can be found on your phone—of the device suspected of having stalkerware into the tool, which will compare the numbers to a leaked list of devices compromised by this family of stalkerware apps. The list is made up of hundreds of thousands of Android devices infected by any one of a network of nine spyware apps prior
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