Avast, a global leader in digital security and privacy products, has found that there has been a 51% increase in the use of spy- and stalkerware since the lockdown in March until June in comparison to January and February 2020. In the US, since March, Avast has protected over 3,500 users from apps capable of spying, mostly stalkerware, with the monthly average up 62% vs. the first two months of the year. Stalkerware is unethical software that allows people to track someone’s location, access their personal photos and videos, intercept emails, texts and app communications such as WhatsApp and Facebook, as well as eavesdrop on phone calls and make covert recordings of conversations over the internet, without the target’s knowledge or consent.
This growing digital threat identified by Avast is set against a backdrop of an increase in domestic violence during lockdown, called a “shadow epidemic” of the coronavirus by Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, Executive Director of UN Women.
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Researchers in the US recently published an academic study examining the impact of the COVID-19 crisis on police calls for service for domestic violence. According to the report, the pandemic and accompanying public health response led to a 10.2 percent increase in domestic violence calls. The increase in reported domestic violence incidents began before official stay-at-home orders were put into place, is not driven by any particular demographic group, but does appear to be driven by households without a prior history of domestic violence.1
The increase in connected devices and the availability of stealthy spy- and stalkerware apps are another way for abusers to exert control over their victims who have been unable to leave their home due to coronavirus preventative measures, according to Erica Olsen, Safety Net project director for the National Network to end Domestic Violence (NNEDV), a social change organization dedicated to creating a social, political, and economic environment in which violence against women no longer exists.
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