Caring for elderly relatives or children – in the face of today’s online dangers – is a difficult task.
Caring for elderly relatives or children – in the face of today’s online dangers – is a difficult task. Imagine all the issues they might face in cyberspace: violence, bullying, unethical people they might encounter. It’s worrying and stressful enough looking after the vulnerable, but keeping them safe from harm in the online world could seem insurmountable.
Out of a desire to help protect their loved ones, a large-scale trend is emerging with people installing ordinary commercial spyware on their relatives’ devices – so that they can track locations and online habits, and check that relatives are safe. Little do they know that this form of ‘protective spying’ could in fact end up doing more harm than good. What if the data collected by the spyware falls into the wrong hands? What if it’s your loved ones we’re talking about and they are being put in danger by your well-intentioned actions?
This is a real and growing trend - cyberspace is currently flooded with commercial spyware tools for Android OS, available for just a few dollars each. Promoted by their creators as legitimate and helpful software tools for keeping a watchful eye on relatives and loved ones, during the first 9 months of 2017 over 120,000 users of Kaspersky Lab products encountered commercial spyware – nearly twice as much as in the same period of 2016 (over 70,000) – showing the rapid growth in popularity of this protective form of spying.
Due to the increasing use of these apps, Kaspersky Lab researchers have examined the most popular tools, and uncovered a number of security issues that could jeopardise not only the devices themselves, but also the private data that they deal with.
Spyware is a type of software that gathers information about a person or organisation without their knowledge, and sends this data to another entity without the consumer's consent. It can also assert control over a device without the user's knowledge. Applications are commonly used to steal and collect text messages, call logs and recordings, as well as GPS tracking, browser data, stored multimedia, and address books. What’s most alarming is that spyware can even access a victim’s social media accounts and messenger applications. And, once access is gained, an attacker can observe messenger conversations, feeds and other personal data from the victim’s social media profile.
To find out how real and potentially wide-ranging the threat is, Kaspersky Lab researchers have analysed a number of major commercial spyware applications. The research discovered that each of the examined apps contain several security issues:
- Non-market applications. Most commercial spyware applications are distributed from their own sites and landing pages, to avoid official online market security checks. As a result, when installing these applications, you need to “allow the installation of non-market applications”, meaning that the user’s device will be unprotected against further malware infection attempts.
- Rooted devices. Some spy features work only on a rooted device, and many vendors recommend that the user obtains “superuser” access rights. However, root rights provide Trojans with almost endless capabilities and can leave the device defenseless against cybercriminal attacks.
- Private data at risk. Crucially, Kaspersky Lab researchers found out that spyware applications pose many threats to the safety of personal data, due to product security flaws and the careless behaviour of developers. Many of them upload a victim’s personal data to command and control centers. Once uploaded, developers do not tend to pay attention to security, and personal data is therefore left accessible to everyone.
According to Kaspersky Lab researchers, security issues associated with commercial spyware, combined with their large arsenal of features, is resulting in a real threat to users’ devices, their personal data, and further damage at the hands of skillful cybercriminals.
“Commercial spyware is a good example of software that is considered legitimate and even helpful, but in fact poses a great number of threats to its users. Installation of such apps is a potentially risky move, which may even lead to further malware infection with severe consequences. That’s why we have created a special technology for Android OS, which helps to find and detect dangerous applications which could otherwise lead to the violation of users’ data privacy,” notes Alexey Firsh, security expert at Kaspersky Lab.
Kaspersky Lab researchers advise users to take the following measures, in order to protect their devices and private data from possible cyberattacks:
- Don’t root your Android device, as this will provide malicious apps with almost unlimited capabilities
- Disable the ability to install applications from sources other than from official app stores
- Keep the OS version of your device up to date, to reduce vulnerabilities in the software, and lower the risk of attack
- Install a proven security solution to protect your device from cyberattack
- Always protect your phone with a password, PIN or fingerprint, so an attacker won’t be able to manually access your device
To help people secure their private data on mobile devices, Kaspersky Lab has developed Kaspersky Internet Security for Android. It protects smartphones and tablets from dangerous apps and websites, ensuring user privacy thanks to protection against malware (including spyware), call and text filtering and an anti-theft feature.
Read more about commercial spyware for Android on Securelist.com.
