Developer(s) Claudio Guarnieri Operating system | Stable release 2.0 / July 28, 2015 License GPLv3 | |
Initial release November 2014 (2014-11) | ||
Detekt is a free tool by Amnesty International, Digitale Gesellschaft, EFF, and Privacy International to scan for surveillance software on Microsoft Windows.
Contents
It's intended for use by activists and journalists to scan for known spyware.
The tool
Detekt is available for free download.
The tool doesn't guarantee detection of all spyware, nor is it meant to give a false sense of security, and should be used with other methods to combat malware and spyware.
The Coalition Against Unlawful Surveillance Exports estimates that the global trade in surveillance technologies is worth more than 3 billion GBP annually.
It's available in Amharic, Arabic, English, German, Italian, and Spanish.
Technical
The tool requires no installation, and is designed to scan for surveillance software on Windows PCs, from XP to Windows 8.1.
The tool scans for current surveillance software, and after scanning, it will display a summary indicating if any spyware was found or not. It will generate a log file containing the details.
The tool doesn't guarantee absolute protection from surveillance software, as it scans for known spyware (at the time of release), which could be modified to circumvent detection, or new software would become available. Therefore, a clean bill of health doesn't necessarily mean that the PC is free of surveillance software.
The website instructs the user to disconnect the internet connection, and close all applications, before running, and not to turn the connection back on if any spyware was found.
Detekt is released under the GPLv3 free license.
Detekt was developed by Claudio Guarnieri with the help of Bill Marczak, Morgan Marquis-Boire, Eva Galperin, Tanya O'Carroll, Andre Meister, Jillian York, Michael Ligh, Endalkachew Chala.
Currently it's provided with patterns for the following malware: DarkComet RAT, XtremeRAT, BlackShades RAT, njRAT, FinFisher FinSpy, HackingTeam RCS, ShadowTech RAT, Gh0st RAT.