How to Mitigate Spyware Risks and Secure Your Business Secrets 

Imagine you wake up to a news report claiming a competitor has access to your confidential product roadmap. How? Through cleverly disguised spyware embedded within your company network or an employee’s mobile phone.

This scenario, while frightening, is a harsh reality for businesses today. Spyware can infiltrate your systems, silently stealing valuable data and jeopardizing your competitive edge.

Although commercial spyware gets most of the media coverage for targeting government officials, activists, and journalists worldwide, it is far from the sole malware type designed to spy on its victims.

Spyware doesn’t only pose a threat to individuals and civil society but also to enterprises.

Commercial spyware refers to legally available software designed for targeted surveillance and data collection from a user's device, usually a mobile phone. While a recent report by Google’s Threat Analysis Group (TAG) reported 16 different commercial spyware strains from 11 companies, security researchers constantly find new occurrences of such malicious software.

Mobile spyware is usually a high-cost, sophisticated malicious tool. Some strains can be installed without requiring the user to click anywhere, which makes them particularly difficult to detect and fight against.

Keyloggers and stalkerware are malware designed to record users' online presence, such as keyboard inputs and browser activity.

According to a March 2024 report by cybersecurity provider Kaspersky, stalkerware reached "pandemic proportions" in 2023, with a total of 31,031 people affected by the intrusive software that year – up almost six percent compared with 2022.

Information stealers, or infostealers, are a more sophisticated version of stalkerware that harvests everything from browsing history, documents, emails, messages and camera rolls.

Infostealers are prevalent in cybercrime, with hackers extensively using such tools to steal useful data from their victims.

Although most infostealers primarily target devices running on Google Android and Microsoft Windows, Recorded Future showed in a June 2024 report that macOS infostealers were on the rise.

Trojan apps are programs that impersonate legitimate applications and hide malicious code or links, leading to malicious payloads.

Once installed, they can perform various malicious tasks, such as monitoring your browsing activity and recording keyboard strokes, but also download additional malware and grant cybercriminals access to the infected device.

Some programs, sometimes called grayware, can be designed for legal and even beneficial tasks and espionage purposes. These include cookies, online trackers and adware.

In April 2023, cybersecurity provider McAfee discovered that several Minecraft-like mobile games available on the Google Play Store actually contained covert adware.

Spyware can have many adverse effects on your business and your employees including :

• Credentials theft: spyware can record the keys the user presses on their keyboard. Hackers use this to obtain passwords, emails, and even banking information. This results in hackers accessing people’s accounts and a business’s network or even identity theft.
• Personal and corporate data theft: spyware can record messages sent through email and social media. If employees send messages containing sensitive business data, this can be harvested if they have spyware infecting their computers.
• Intellectual property theft: spyware can steal sensitive data such as customer records, financial information, and intellectual property (IP). This data can then be used to commit fraud, identity theft, or other crimes.
• Damage productivity: spyware can slow down computers and make it difficult for employees to work. It can also distract employees and make them less productive.

During an Infosecurity Europe 2024 panel session on the Keynote Stage, Brian Honan, CEO of BH Consulting, urged companies to fight against spyware. He explained that even if a firm is not the target of spyware, an employee’s work device might be infected by commercial spyware.

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Although there is no silver bullet to prevent spyware from infecting corporate systems and employees’ devices, some best practices can help.

These best practices include:

• Using pop-up blockers
• Installing anti-spyware tools
• Making sure your employees always download software from the distributor’s actual website

Adopting a good cybersecurity posture to prevent other, more prominent threats can also help prevent spyware.

Such a posture includes the following basic cybersecurity measures:

• Installing antivirus or endpoint detection and response (EDR) solutions
• Patching software regularly
• Segmenting your networks
• Monitoring your networks (vulnerability scanning, search for suspicious free software…)
• Educating employees about general threat vectors (email phishing, SMS phishing…) as well as about spyware

Some cybersecurity products specifically scan or protect against certain types of spyware, said Honan during Infosecurity Europe.

“Talk to your vendor and ask them if their software detects and protects against spyware. If they don’t, talk to one that does,” he advised.

Spyware activity can be detected by looking for telltale signs. These include:

• An employee’s device suddenly slows down or lags while performing specific tasks
• Their browser's default home page has suddenly changed
• Unknown browser extensions are automatically installed without your employee’s knowledge
• Advert pop-ups appear where they previously hadn’t
• Websites your employee click on get redirected to adverts or other websites
• Antivirus and anti-malware software are not working properly
• The camera and microphone on your employee’s device turn on automatically.

Read more: Governments and Tech Giants Unite Against Commercial Spyware

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