How to find stalkerware on your smartphone

The digital window to your soul might just have a Peeping Tom. 

Say hello to stalkerware, a noxious class of software designed to surreptitiously run in the background of smartphones. Its purpose is to keep tabs on everything you do, then report it back to whoever decided to spy on the most intimate and personal details of your life.

As smartphones further entrench themselves in our daily lives, the amount of information we both knowingly and unknowingly entrust to these devices likewise grows. This has, in many respects, been a boon — albeit not exclusively to the people we have in mind. 

"Stalkerware is especially pernicious because it is such a rich source of information," explained the Electronic Frontier Foundation's director of cybersecurity Eva Galperin over encrypted chat. "Stalkerware can track your location, record your phone calls and text messages, steal the passwords to the social media accounts you log into through your phone, reveal your contacts, your photos, your emails, and even your end-to-end encrypted communications." Read more...