The Spyware Used in Intimate Partner Violence

Abstract

Survivors of intimate partner violence increasingly report that abusers install spyware on devices to track their location, monitor communications, and cause emotional and physical harm. To date there has been only cursory investigation into the spyware used in such intimate partner surveillance (IPS). We provide the first in-depth study of the IPS spyware ecosystem. We design, implement, and evaluate a measurement pipeline that combines web and app store crawling with machine learning to find and label apps that are potentially dangerous in IPS contexts. Ultimately we identify several hundred such IPS-relevant apps.While we find dozens of overt spyware tools, the majority are "dual-use" apps -they have a legitimate purpose (e.g., child safety or anti-theft), but are easily and effectively repurposed for spying on a partner. We document that a wealth of online resources are available to educate abusers about exploiting apps for IPS. We also show how some dual-use app developers are encouraging their use in IPS via advertisements, blogs, and customer support services. We analyze existing anti-virus and anti-spyware tools, which universally fail to identify dual-use apps as a threat.

Human Rights by Design: The Responsibilities of Social Media Platforms to Address Gender‐Based Violence Online

“…We suggest that the next steps in a multifaceted response to online GBV requires open discussion and debate as well as empirical research to better understand peoples' lived experiences of online GBV. While excellent work is emerging (see e.g., Chatterjee et al, 2018;Dragiewicz et al, 2018;Freed et al, 2017Freed et al, , 2018Lewis et al, 2017;Salter, 2017;Woodlock, 2017), more research is needed to understand the landscape of GBV and responses to it online. In particular, empirical research is needed in order to produce evidence to guide international efforts to modify and use Internet architecture to address GBV.…”

Privacy threats in intimate relationships

“…Abusers have used a variety of digital tools to spy on or exert control over their victims, most of which require minimal technical sophistication. Some abusers use off-the-shelf spyware apps, which are commonly available online and on app stores; these applications run in the background on victims' mobile phones and computers, reporting their activities back to an abuser surreptitiously [48,49].…”

“…Sometimes authentication can by bypassed altogether-for example, the abuser may be able to keep track of the victim's communications because they share a family plan for cellular service, or via browser history on a shared computer [46,54]. Child-tracking apps and employee-tracking apps are easily repurposed for surreptitiously monitoring intimate partners, and there are some indications that their developers are aware of and condone such use [48]. Social media also presents an easy route toward tracking, as many platforms offer up information like a user's location while posting or an indicator of whether the user is actively on the site.…”

“…A separate study found that parents with home-entryway surveillance systems routinely monitor the comings and goings of their teenage children [66]. Parental monitoring software is commonly marketed to aid parents in many of these activities [28,48]. On the more extreme end of the spectrum, parents may purchase tamperproof ankle bracelets and GPS monitoring services for "high-risk" teens [67].…”

Classification of Spyware Affected files using Data Mining Techniques

“…Some of the software coders take advantage of it and misuse their knowledge in creating malicious codes or mal-codes or malwares. Some software are designed for dual purpose (Chatterjee, 2018) in windows as well as android environment. This can be possible in the entire known operating system environment.…”