Cybersecurity company Kaspersky uses International Day against Violence against Women to introduce a new tool to detect stalkerware.
This is software that allows people to secretly spy on someone else’s private life, usually via the victim’s smartphone.
According to Kaspersky, stalkerware is a growing problem worldwide that is also used as a means of violence against women. Once installed on the victim’s smartphone or tablet, it becomes possible to remotely monitor all his or her activities and movements unnoticed, which is a gross invasion of privacy.
To counter this practice, the cybersecurity company developed the TinyCheck tool. The program detects the presence of stalkerware and other spyware on a smart device, without making the perpetrator aware that such a check is being performed.
TinyCheck is not yet very accessible, at least not for the average consumer. This is because this phase is an open-source tool for the cheap Raspberry Pi computer platform.
With this combination of hardware and software, the outgoing traffic from a mobile device can be checked via a normal WiFi connection. TinyCheck identifies all interactions with known malicious sources, such as spyware-related servers, during that process.
The goal of TinyCheck is, therefore, mainly to help non-profit organizations protect victims of domestic violence and their privacy.