Che cos'è: Stalkerware

Che cos'è Stalkerware

Stalkerware è il termine comunemente usato, che indica qualsiasi software utilizzato per Stalking, ovvero tracciamento non autorizzato di persone, che spesso è anche nascosto.

Stalkerware, Spouseware, Creepware: qual è la differenza

Molto spesso, il termine "stalkerware" è usato in sinonimo di parole come "creepware" e "spouseware". Questi concetti sono molto simili, ma presentano alcune differenze. , come suggerisce il nome, è un software utilizzato per rintracciare un coniuge. Creepware è un tipo di malware che viene installato segretamente su un computer o altro dispositivo digitale all'insaputa dell'utente. monitorare l'attività dell'utente e controllare in remoto il dispositivo, pertanto i termini stalkerware e spouseware sono davvero sinonimi (spouseware è un caso speciale di stalkerware) e indicano principalmente il modo in cui il software viene utilizzato, piuttosto che le sue caratteristiche e i suoi metodi di lavoro. girare, caratterizza il metodo di installazione e funzionamento di questo 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.