Security News > 2022 > February > AirGuard Android app offers better detection of AirTag stalking
An Apple AirTag is a Bluetooth-based device finder released in April 2021 that allows owners to track the device using Apple's 'Find My' service.
The university researchers decided to do something about the Apple AirTag privacy problem in the Android world and reverse-engineered the iOS tracking detection to understand its inner workings better.
They then designed the AirGuard app, a fully automatic and passive detection anti-tracking solution that works against all Find My accessories and other tracking devices.
"The evaluation showed that AirGuard found more actual trackers in different scenarios compared to the iOS tracking detection," explained the researchers in a paper released this week.
Apart from serving the tracking warnings faster, AirGuard can also detect trackers placed on cars, which is the most difficult for other solutions to unearth, and the best tracker placement option for malicious actors.
The only weakness of AirGuard against iOS is the limited scan opportunities granted by the Android OS, which makes the tracker location logs more sparing.