Security News > 2021 > May > Mobile stalkerware is on the rise

Mobile stalkerware, which is software silently installed by stalkers onto victims' mobile devices without their knowledge, is on the rise, an ESET research finds.

In 2019, ESET telemetry recorded almost five times more Android stalkerware detections than in 2018, and in 2020, almost 1.5 times more were recorded than in 2019.

Serious vulnerabilities were discovered in Android stalkerware apps and their monitoring servers that could result in serious user impact if exploited.

For stalkerware vendors, to stay under the radar and avoid being flagged as stalkerware, their apps are in many cases promoted as providing protection to children, employees, or women, yet the word "Spy" is used many times on their websites.

Researchers manually analyzed 86 stalkerware apps for the Android platform, provided by 86 different vendors.

Among the most prevalent issues were insecure transmission of users' personally identifiable information; storage of sensitive information on external media; exposure of sensitive user information to unauthorized users; server leak of stalkerware client information; and unauthorized data transmission from device to server.

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