What is:Stalkerware/fr

Qu'est-ce que Stalkerware

Stalkerware est le terme couramment utilisé, désignant tout logiciel utilisé pour stalking, c'est-à-dire le suivi non autorisé de personnes, ce qui est souvent secret également.

Stalkerware, Spouseware, Creepware - quelle est la différence

Très souvent, le terme «stalkerware» est utilisé comme synonyme de mots tels que «creepware» et «spouseware». Ces concepts sont vraiment similaires, mais présentent cependant quelques différences. Spouseware , comme son nom l'indique, est un logiciel utilisé pour suivre un conjoint. Creepware est un type de malware qui est installé secrètement sur un ordinateur ou un autre appareil numérique à l'insu de son utilisateur. Il permet de surveiller l'activité des utilisateurs et contrôler à distance l'appareil. Ainsi, les termes stalkerware et spouseware sont vraiment synonymes (spouseware est un cas particulier de stalkerware) et indiquent principalement la façon dont le logiciel est utilisé, plutôt que ses caractéristiques et ses méthodes de travail. Creepware, dans son tour, caractérise la méthode d'installation et de fonctionnement de ce logiciel.

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.