What is:Stalkerware/es

¿Qué es Stalkerware

Stalkerware es el término comúnmente utilizado, que denota cualquier software que se utiliza para [1], es decir, el seguimiento no autorizado de personas, que a menudo también es encubierto.

Stalkerware, Spouseware, Creepware: ¿cuál es la diferencia

Muy a menudo, el término 'stalkerware' se usa como sinónimo de palabras como 'creepware' y 'spouseware'. Estos conceptos son realmente similares, pero tienen algunas diferencias. , como su nombre lo indica, es un software que se utiliza para rastrear a un cónyuge. Creepware es un tipo de malware que se instala secretamente en una computadora u otro dispositivo digital sin el conocimiento de su usuario. Permite supervisar la actividad del usuario y controlar el dispositivo de forma remota. Por lo tanto, los términos stalkerware y spouseware son realmente sinónimos (spouseware es un caso especial de stalkerware) e indican principalmente la forma en que se utiliza el software, en lugar de sus características y métodos de trabajo. A su vez, caracteriza el método de instalación y operación de este software.

Stalkerware and monitoring software

There are 3 main scenarios for using monitoring software:

• Installing monitoring software on your own devices in order to monitor them; other people who use these devices are informed about such monitoring;
• Installing monitoring software on your own devices in order to monitor them; other people who use these devices are not informed about such monitoring;
• Installing monitoring software on other people's devices in order to monitor them, without knowledge of the devices’ owners.

When it comes to stalkerware, the last option is most often implied — when the stalker, even after gaining short-term physical access to the victim’s device, covertly installs spyware on it, thereby gaining access to information about all future activity on the monitored device, without the victim's knowledge. In most countries (jurisdictions) such use of software is illegal. The term 'stalkerware' itself appeared precisely because of the cases when legal monitoring software was used to track intimate partners and spouses without their knowledge.

Use of the term

The problem with using the term 'stalkerware' is that many experts and journalists, when using it, don’t mean software that was used for illegal / unethical purposes – they mean any software that could even potentially be used in this way. Sometimes any monitoring software is called stalkerware.

For example, the Coalition Against Stalkerware, an association of cybersecurity companies, offers the following definition of the term 'stalkerware': "It is software, made available directly to individuals, that enables a remote user to monitor the activities on another user's device without that user's consent and without explicit, persistent notification to that user in order to intentionally or unintentionally facilitate intimate partner surveillance, harassment, abuse, stalking, and/or violence." So, any monitoring software that can work covertly falls under this definition, no matter what purpose it is used for.