Category: Blog

It’s a scenario many of us can imagine, or maybe it’s one that you’ve actually seen play out: you’re shopping for groceries when you hear a raised voice from down the aisle.

“Why do you keep buying things we don’t need?”

“I’m sorry, you’re right. We don’t…”

“I’m sick of you, can’t you do anything right?”

You recognize the signs of a survivor of domestic violence. Their eyes are downcast, their arms are wrapped around themselves, and they are clearly afraid of the person they’re with. They clearly need help.

Do you intervene? Will it help the survivor, or place them in greater risk? Is it safe to say anything? Those questions might echo through your mind, and it can be hard to know what’s the right thing to do in such a situation. The answer is deceptively simple- do something. What that is, isn’t quite as simple.

There are three fundamental things to consider if you witness domestic violence in public. The first is your safety and the safety of those around you. Abusers often fear confrontation with those who aren’t their victim, but some are prone to violence- especially if they’re under the influence.  The second is the safety of the survivor, who may be at risk of harm if the situation escalates. The third is the long-term well-being of the survivor, who may take the opportunity to escape if given. Or, if they don’t leave at that time, having others confirm that the abuser’s behavior is not okay may break through the gaslighting  and emotional manipulation they’ve likely endured.

One of the hidden risks in intervention is that the abuser may blame the survivor for the actions of bystanders, especially if they physically intervene. This can inadvertently result in greater danger later on, behind closed doors. However, in addition to the benefit of validating and encouraging the survivor, careful intervention may show the them that there’s support available to them, giving them hope and strength when they’re ready to leave.

This list is not exhaustive, but includes some signs that a person you may see in public is impacted by domestic violence. Remember that they may exhbit all or none of these signs, domestic violence can look very different from one case to another.

• They seem afraid of their partner and anxious around them
• They cut conversations short when their partner comes near
• Their partner criticizes or humiliates them in front of other people
• Their partner orders them around and makes all the decisions, such as what to buy or how much to spend
• They appear nervous and depressed, or very quiet
• You observe physical injuries
• Their children seem afraid of the partner or unwilling to be around them

If you intervene, remember that the primary goal is to prevent a situation from escalating. Even better, to create an opportunity to check in with the individual and see if they need help.

There are many ways you can help to stop a situation from escalating, depending on the specific circumstances. For example:

• Find a reason to be within the abuser’s line of sight. By moving elsewhere in the aisle or to another spot on the sidewalk, you can have a pretext for being within the abuser’s line of sight. Just knowing that people can see or hear their behavior may cause them to stop.
• Make some noise. If the abuser assumes they’re in a private space, make some noise so they know they can be observed. Cough or start a conversation on your phone. Turn up your music. Whatever it takes to remove the blinders that cause the abuser to focus on the person in front of them
• There’s safety in numbers. If you don’t feel comfortable intervening alone, ask someone to go with you. Or if you’re not comfortable approaching at all, let someone know so they can assist. If the situation appears dangerous or to be escalating, call 911
• Record and document everything. If possible, record the interaction on your phone to help the survivor get help from law enforcement and the court system. Annotate dates, times, witnesses, what you heard, license plate numbers, and anything else that might help the person in danger. Keep in mind, however, that many survivors won’t take legal action or work with police until they’re ready to do so
• Create a distration. Try asking for the time or where something is located in the store. Ask the survivor where they got their outfit. Ask if they have seen your friend who may have left without you. This may cause the abuser to disengage or, ideally, leave. If the opportunity presents itself to separate the abuser and survivor, be there to listen and offer whatever help you can
• If you can talk to the survivor alone, give them support but respect their agency. “I’m concerned about what I just saw. Do you need help?” can go a long way for someone experiencing domestic violence. Such a phrase lets them know that people care about them, that the behavior is unacceptable (and not their fault), and that there’s hope. It’s important that they know that they don’t deserve to be treated in such a way. At this point, you can tell them about resources like Operation Safe Escape or the National Domestic Violence Hotline

Remember that many survivors of domestic violence need time to plan and prepare their escape, and trying to compel them to leave right away may actually do more harm than good. On average, a survivor of domestic violence makes seven attempts to leave an abusive relationship, which can be complicated by custody and financial issues. So even if the person is ready to leave in that moment, giving support once or finding a way to offer continuing support may help empower them when they need it.

It may be difficult to accept if someone isn’t ready to leave when the danger seems apparent. Try to remember that the survivor has likely had their autonomy stripped away by the abuser, and they may not have been able to make their own choices on many things. Telling them what to do or trying to force them to make a decision on the spot can inadvertently retraumatize the person you’re trying to help. Instead, respect their choice and remember that they have a much better idea of what’s safe and what they’re able to do in that moment than you do. And understand that some people may not ever leave an abusive relationship for one reason or another. You can share your concerns, give support, tell them you care, help them develop a safety plan, and give them resources, but you can’t make their choices for them.

Trigger warning: non-graphic statistics on assault and sexual violence.

Just a few decades ago, domestic violence simply wasn’t something that people talked about. Abuse within the home was considered to be a private family matter, except for when it was portrayed for comedic purposes in television and advertisements. By the 1960s, scholars and social service providers were just starting to recognize that child abuse is a major and pervasive social issue, but it wasn’t until the 1970s that the Battered Women’s Movement, as it was called at the time, brought domestic violence to the public’s attention. This led to substantial reform, to include new laws and resources such as shelters, hotlines, and advocacy groups.

The first known study showing that man are also victims of abuse was presented in 1975. However, many men are reluctant to report acts of domestic violence for multiple personal and socio-cultural reasons. This has led to under-reporting of acts of intimate partner violence among men.

Domestic violence is not restricted to any single group, and it’s something that we as a society need to talk about. It’s important to recognize that domestic violence can impact anyone, so it feels safe for anyone to get help.

Every minute in the United States, 20 people experience domestic violence. According to a 2017 CDC report, 1 in 4 women and 1 in 7 men will experience severe physical violence at the hands of an intimate partner at some point in their life. The CDC also notes that 16.9% of women and 8% of men will experience sexual violence (this statistic does not include rape), although the report also concludes that data on sexual violence against men may be under-reported.

Domestic violence also crosses race and ethnicity lines, with 47.5% of American Indian or Alaskan Native women, 45.1% of non-Hispanic Black women, 37.3% of non-Hispanic White women, 34.4% of Hispanic women, and 18.3% of Asian-Pacific Islander women experiencing sexual violence, physical violence, and/or stalking by an intimate partner within their lifetime.

According to the 2010 National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey, the most common age when intimate partner violence is first experienced by women is age 18-24 (38.6%), followed by age 11-17 (22.4%), age 35-44 (6.8%) and age 45+ (2.5%). For men the most common age is age 18-24 (47.1%), followed by age 25-34 (30.6%), age 11-17 (15.0%), age 35-44 (10.3%) and age 45+ (5.5%).

If we, as a society, are going to effectively combat domestic violence, we need to support everyone impacted by it regardless of demographics. But if we ignore anyone because of our preconceptions and biases, we’ve failed them.

Additional information: Domestic Violence in the 1970s, written by Catherine Jacquet for the National Institute of Health.

We’re a huge organization of hackers, makers, and security expert that work together to help survivors of stalking, harassment, and domestic violence escape and stay safe after they do.

To do this, we provide forensics and investigation services to help survivors get legal assistance, security education and rescue ops, seminars and direct assistance for support organizations such as domestic violence shelters and safe houses, educational and awareness resources, and so much more. We help survivors navigate the difficult process of planning and effecting their escape, and make sure they have a safe place to go once they do. We help develop policy and strategic advisories for protective programs across the country and integrate our work to support/protect/rescue survivors at every level.

…and we do it all for free.

OSE has successfully helped in over 2000 cases, without cost to any survivors. We need your help to continue doing it. Last year, we supplied over 2 million dollars in security services free to survivors and support organizations and we rely on volunteers and subject matter experts to keep doing it. Please consider helping us by clicking here.

On August 15th, 2018, an unsavory character was able to obtain complete and total access to everything on my personal cell phone. In just a few minutes, they were able to download all of my pictures and videos. They could read my text messages and emails, and even send whatever they wanted to while pretending to be me. They tracked my location and secretly activated my microphone and camera. They knew where I was at any given moment and where I would be according to my calendar. They had access to my entire life.

Fortunately, I was that unsavory character. And just as fortunately, I was conducting an experiment to demonstrate how easy it can be to weaponize our own phones against us, how hard it can be to detect for even advanced users, and how disastrous it can be if it happens. Turns out, it’s pretty easy.

In May of 2018, security researchers Andrew Blaich and Michael Flossman with the security firm Lookout, discovered a new malware variant that they dubbed Stealth Mango (for Android) and Tangelo (for IOS). These tools were successfully deployed against military and government targets in Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Iraq, Iran, and the UAE, and spread largely through phishing and compromised websites. The campaign was ultimately able to exfiltrate over 15GB of data, including text messages, contacts, secret recordings, and sensitive military/government communications. The stolen data even included passport scans, ID cards, whiteboards, and meeting/ceremony pictures that included US service members. In other words, it was a treasure trove of information.

While researching the campaign, the researchers make a remarkable discovery: the same team that developed Stealth Mango and Tangelo also made a commercial variant and the code was almost exactly the same. Commercial variants of mobile spyware are often referred to as “stalkerware” or “spouseware”, named after their common usage.

Once upon a time, sophisticated mobile attacks and intelligence operations were the purview of state actors. This is why the government and military doesn’t allow cell phones into certain areas. But now the threat has grown exponentially and the sheer number of potential attack vectors warrant a careful reconsideration of our policies, training, and defensive posture. Today, the threat includes anyone with $60 or so and easily who can follow basic instructions. There are countless variants of this sort of software commercially available, not to mention the multiple homebrew versions. We can start to get some idea of the sheer scope of the problem by analyzing the data leaded from a self-identified employee of one such company, Flexispy.

Flexispy makes and sells this sort of software. They also sell a “white label” version for other companies to resell under their own brand. According to the information provided to motherboard security researchers Lorenzo Franceschi-Bicchierai and Joseph Cox, at least 130,000 people had accounts with the service. Among them, a fifth-grade teacher, the president of a distribution company, the vice-president of a bank and many more. And that’s just one company- there’s many others with their own customer base.

Recently, I went to the website of one such company. Their website lists two primary uses for their brand of stalkerware: to “keep your children safe” and to “monitor your employee’s company phone usage”. Insert additional air quotes liberally. It’s important to note that both of those purposes are technically legal, although there would be certain caveats and provisions that would be the responsibility of the buyer to obey.

As an experiment, I contacted this company with a fictitious back story. I told the sales rep that I thought my “girlfriend” was cheating on me, and I wanted to know if their product could help me spy on her. I expressed concern that she would discover it, and mentioned that it’s her phone on her own account. In other words, I was asking if I could use their software to commit a major crime. The rep assured me that it would work perfectly for this purpose. They offered tips on installing it without the victim discovering it, and they even offered a 10% discount code for my first month.

After I purchased a one-month license (I chose not to take advantage of discounts offered for longer durations), it took about two minutes to infect my phone. After that, I merely had to login to my online dashboard on the company’s website to access everything on my now-infected phone. If I intended harm, I would have had ample means to do it then.

The fictitious story is a realistic one, and includes not only an abusive partner but also burglars, hackers, or anyone else that would benefit from this unprecedented level of access when trying to accomplish their goals our counter our own. It’s an inexpensive and low-risk method of intelligence gathering that can be initiated from anywhere in the world, depending on the technical capabilities of the attacker.

As discussed previously, we already restrict cell phones in specific areas. This is a good thing, and that shouldn’t change. But what could your adversary could do if they manage to infect one or more of your employee’s personal or issued cell phones?

We all know that we’re not supposed to talk about work-related topics while we’re out of the office for lunch, but we feel a little bit safer when we’re alone with our trusted coworkers who are working on the same project. We wouldn’t tell our adversary about network issues and vulnerabilities, but we might do a quick internet search on our phone while trying to fix a router configuration issue. And we work hard to protect information about client arrivals, even though a compromised phone can tell far more than an itinerary can. That’s not to mention the blackmail potential for well-placed employees based on their app usage (for example, a married employee using a dating / hookup app), location history, email receipts, and more. The next time you think about the information you want to protect, think about all the items that could potentially be compromised along with your employee’s phones.

As always, real-world risk should inform policy. But when we’re talking about personal devices and non-work hours, there’s only so much that policy can adequately address. We need to provide our users with the resources and information they need to protect themselves under those conditions. For example, these are some important concepts that can be relayed to your employees in order to help protect them and your critical information:

– Free antivirus apps are able to detect many variants of stalkerware, but are often not installed by default. Installing a third-party antivirus app by a reputable company will help prevent infection in the first place
– Periodically scan through your list of installed apps to look for anything you didn’t install or don’t recognize. Many stalkerware apps don’t actually display an icon, so this may not be enough on its own
– If using an android device, look through the settings for “device administrators.” Any apps listed here have more or less full control of your device. For example, the program that I tested required these privileges in order to function. Also, disable the “install from unknown sources” option to help prevent the surreptitious installation of apps
– The least difficult method of installing stalkerware involves physical access to the device. This allows the attacker to ensure that it’s working properly and their tracks are fully removed. Make sure your device is locked and uses a password, PIN, or some other security feature. Other methods of installation seen in the wild include phishing attacks or luring users to a compromised website, referred to as a “watering hole” attack. Make sure these methods are addressed in your training and awareness program
– Some users choose to root or jailbreak their phone in order to increase functionality or unlock certain features. However, this also increases the options available to the attacker. For example, some attacks against iOS devices simply won’t work unless the device is jailbroken. If your users have rooted or jailbroken their devices, make sure they’re aware of the risks

This was only a very broad overview discussing the scope of the problem and basic remediation measures. We have no choice but to meet this emerging threat head on before it’s too late. Much like our adversaries, we have to adapt to a new, increasingly connected environment where the battle lines are blurry at best and ordinary users are on the front lines of a new kind of war.