Kaspersky Lab Will Now Alert Users to 'Stalkerware' Used In Domestic Abuse

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Kaspersky Lab Will Now Alert Users to 'Stalkerware' Used In Domestic Abuse

Antivirus company Kaspersky Lab announced that its Android security product will now mark all stalkerware apps as malware, prompting users to delete them.

Tens of thousands of people all over the world have been spied on with malware sold to consumers for less than $100, as Motherboard has shown over the years. In some of these cases, the hackers are the victim’s spouses or intimate partners, making this one of the most dangerous forms of hacking as it enabled domestic abuse.

Now, Kaspersky Lab, one of the largest antivirus companies in the world, is doing something about it.

The company announced on Wednesday that its Android security product will start alerting users that their phones have this kind of malware—sometimes called stalkerware or spouseware—installed on their phones.

“We decided to review how our own products treat such software. As a result, we now flag commercial spyware with a specific alert which warns users of the dangers stalkerware poses,” Alexey Firsh, a security researcher at Kaspersky Lab said in a press release. “We believe users have a right to know if such a program is installed on their device.”

A study by researchers from New York University and Cornell University last year showed that most antivirus products are ineffective at detecting stalkerware as malware. This is perhaps because—in theory—these apps can be used legally by parents monitoring their kids or employers keeping an eye on their employers on company-issued devices.   

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