What is:Stalkerware

What is stalkerware

Stalkerware is the commonly used term, denoting any software that is used for stalking, i.e. unauthorized tracking of people, which is often covert as well.

Stalkerware, Spouseware, Creepware - what's the difference

Very often, the term 'stalkerware' is used synonymously with such words as creepware and spouseware. These concepts are really similar, but yet have some differences. Spouseware, as its name implies, is software that is used to track a spouse. Creepware is a type of malware that is secretly installed on a computer or other digital device without the knowledge of its user. It allows to monitor user activity and remotely control the device. Thus, the terms 'stalkerware' and 'spouseware' are really synonymous (spouseware is a special case of stalkerware) and indicate primarily the way the software is used, rather than its characteristics and working methods. Creepware, in its turn, characterizes the method of installation and operation of this 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.