The market for Android spying stalker apps with which devices can be secretly monitored, tracked and spied on, is steadily growing.
These consumer-grade spyware apps are often marketed to parents wishing to monitor their child’s calls, messages, apps, photos and location, often under the guise of protecting against predators. But these apps, which are often designed to be installed surreptitiously and without the device owner’s consent, have been repurposed by abusers to spy on the phones of their spouses.
The rise in the use of stalkerware (or “spouseware”) prompted an industrywide response in recent years to combat the spread of phone monitoring apps. As a result, last August, Google banned ads in users’ search results that promoted apps that are designed “with the express purpose of tracking or monitoring another person or their activities without their authorization.”
Stalkerware is designed to run undetected by the victims and they are often unaware when this software has been installed on their device. Finding such a program on your phone, then, is the first step toward addressing the personal violation and safety risk it poses.
If you have an Android phone, you can scan it for stalkerware with an anti-virus tool like RedFox Mobile Security app. If there’s a hit, the anti-virus program will alert you.
