In November 2020, Kaspersky released a free anti-stalkerware tool called TinyCheck. 

The initial goal of TinyCheck was to help NFP organisations support victims of domestic violence and protect their privacy, but Kaspersky quickly realised it could be of use to anyone. 

TinyCheck monitors your smartphone data and identifies potential anomalies indicating your phone may be compromised by stalkerware. 

What is stalkerware? 

Stalkerware enables someone to secretly spy on another person’s private life via their smartphone and is often used to facilitate violence against an intimate partner. The abuser can remotely monitor the whole device including web searches, geolocation, text messages, photos, and much more. 

Unfortunately, the use of stalkerware is common. In 2019, Kaspersky detected a 67% year-on-year increase of stalkerware usage on its users’ mobile devices globally. The number of stalkerware installations worldwide during the first 10 months of 2020 totalled more than 48,500, which is close to the total (almost 52,000 installations) observed over the same period in 2019. 

While stalkerware and other cybersecurity threats are somewhat inevitable, there are steps we can all take to protect our data. 

How can TinyCheck help? 

TinyCheck is unique in its ability to detect stalkerware and notify the affected user without making the offender aware. Nothing has to be installed on the device to perform the check. 

TinyCheck is an open-source tool that relies on the popular Raspberry Pi platform (no, not the one from the bakery). Using a regular Wi-Fi connection, it scans a mobile device’s outgoing traffic and identifies interactions with known malicious sources, such as stalkerware-related servers. While other security solutions can also check and alert about stalkerware, they need to be installed on the device, presenting a risk that the offender will be alerted.  

TinyCheck is compatible with any device, regardless of whether it is an iOS or Android device or any other operating system. 

What happens if an intruder is found? 

If your smartphone sends data to a suspicious server, TinyCheck will inform you with an alert. The results of the analysis can be saved on an external USB storage device if the user wants to, providing IP addresses and domain names of the suspicious servers.  

TinyCheck does not collect or store any data and therefore automatically deletes the report once viewed. Hence, to serve as evidence, the report needs to be saved by the user.  

If TinyCheck does identify stalkerware on your smartphone, think twice before deleting it. The person who installed it may notice, and that could make things worse. Uninstalling the program also could erase evidence that you might need later. 

Limitations 

Like all security solutions, TinyCheck does have limitations. Kaspersky cautions that TinyCheck does not provide a complete, 100 % detection of all stalkerware apps. Hence, a result that shows no detection of stalkerware cannot exclude the possibility that stalkerware is installed but merely not detected by TinyCheck at this stage.  

At the same time, it does provide a 75% detection rate, and in AV-Comparatives’ (2021) test on stalkerware, it was referred to as “a very valuable tool in the fight against stalkerware”. 

How to access TinyCheck 

If you think a Raspberry Pi is something to buy in a bakery, you’ll probably be better off getting an IT pro to configure TinyCheck for you. Better yet, find someone you know and trust. 

Detailed technical requirements and instructions for setting up TinyCheck are available on the solution’s GitHub page. 

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