"This is What Happens When Your Phone is Spying on You"

According to a team of computer scientists from New York and San Diego, smartphone spyware apps that allow people to spy on each other are difficult to notice and detect, and easily leak the sensitive personal information they collect. Spyware apps are often used by abusers to secretly spy on a spouse or partner, despite being advertised as tools for monitoring children and employees. These apps require little technical expertise as they provide clear installation instructions and only need temporary access to the victim's device. After installation, they secretly record the victim's device activities, including text messages, emails, photos, and calls. The apps also enable abusers to remotely access this information via a web interface. Between September 2020 and May 2021, the number of devices containing spyware apps rose by 63 percent. Enze Liu, a Ph.D. student in computer science at the University of California, San Diego, and their colleagues conducted an in-depth technical analysis of 14 of the most popular spyware apps for Android phones. They discovered that spyware apps use various approaches to secretly record data. One app was found to use an invisible browser capable of streaming live video from the device's camera to a spyware server. The apps can also record phone calls using the device's microphone, sometimes activating the device's speaker to capture conversations. Several apps also take advantage of smartphone accessibility features designed to read what appears on the screen to vision-impaired users. These features effectively enable spyware to record keystrokes. The team also discovered a number of techniques used by the spyware apps to hide on the target's device. This article continues to discuss the findings from the study "No Privacy Among Spies: Assessing the Functionality and Insecurity of Consumer Android Spyware Apps."

UC San Diego Today reports "This is What Happens When Your Phone is Spying on You"