Eva Galperin is the Director of

Cybersecurity Computer security (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and networks from thr ...

at the

Electronic Frontier Foundation The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) is an American international non-profit digital rights group based in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1990 to promote Internet civil liberties. It provides funds for legal defense in court, ...

(EFF) and technical advisor for the

Freedom of the Press Foundation Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is an American non-profit organization founded in 2012 to fund and support free speech and freedom of the press. The organization originally managed crowd-funding campaigns for independent journalistic organ ...

. She is noted for her extensive work in protecting global privacy and free speech and for her research on

malware Malware (a portmanteau of ''malicious software'')Tahir, R. (2018)A study on malware and malware detection techniques . ''International Journal of Education and Management Engineering'', ''8''(2), 20. is any software intentionally designed to caus ...

and nation-state spyware.

Biography

Galperin was born in Latvia to Jewish parents who escaped Soviet antisemitism by seeking refuge in the United States. Her family resettled in California in the 1980s. Galperin became interested in computers at an early age through her father, who was a computer security specialist. When she was 12, he created a desktop for her on his

Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...

Solaris Solaris is the Latin word for sun. It may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Sol ...

computer and she became active in

Usenet Usenet (), a portmanteau of User's Network, is a worldwide distributed discussion system available on computers. It was developed from the general-purpose UUCP, Unix-to-Unix Copy (UUCP) dial-up network architecture. Tom Truscott and Jim Elli ...

discussion areas about science fiction novels and playing interactive text games, and she later became active in web development. She attended college at

San Francisco State University San Francisco State University (San Francisco State, SF State and SFSU) is a Public university, public research university in San Francisco, California, United States. It was established in 1899 as the San Francisco State Normal School and is ...

for political science and international relations while working as a Unix

system administrator An IT administrator, system administrator, sysadmin, or admin is a person who is responsible for the upkeep, configuration, and reliable operation of computer systems, especially multi-user computers, such as Server (computing), servers. The ...

at various companies in

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that is a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical area of the Santa Clara Valley ...

. Galperin joined the EFF in 2007. Prior to EFF, she worked at the Center for US–China policy studies, where she helped to organize conferences and researched Chinese energy policy. At EFF, she led the Threat Lab project before she was promoted as the EFF's Director of Cybersecurity in 2017. Since 2018, she focused on the eradication of the "

stalkerware Stalkerware is monitoring software or spyware that is used for cyberstalking. The term was coined when people started to widely use commercial spyware or monitoring software to spy on their spouses or intimate partners. Stalkerware has been criti ...

spyware Spyware (a portmanteau for spying software) is any malware that aims to gather information about a person or organization and send it to another entity in a way that harms the user by violating their privacy, endangering their device's securit ...

used for

domestic abuse Domestic violence is violence that occurs in a domestic setting, such as in a marriage or cohabitation. In a broader sense, abuse including nonphysical abuse in such settings is called domestic abuse. The term "domestic violence" is often use ...

industry, working with victims of stalkerwares. These malicious applications, which are being marketed to abusive spouses, overbearing parents, and stalkers, can be installed secretly on mobile devices, allowing their owners to monitor their targets' activities. In April 2019, she convinced

anti-virus Antivirus software (abbreviated to AV software), also known as anti-malware, is a computer program used to prevent, detect, and remove malware. Antivirus software was originally developed to detect and remove computer viruses, hence the name ...

provider

Kaspersky Lab Kaspersky Lab (; ) is a Russian multinational cybersecurity and anti-virus provider headquartered in Moscow, Russia, and operated by a holding company in the United Kingdom. It was founded in 1997 by Eugene Kaspersky, Natalya Kaspersky a ...

to begin explicitly alerting users of security threats upon detection of stalkerware on the company's Android product. She also asked

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

to allow antivirus applications in its marketplace and, like Kaspersky, to alert its users if their mobile devices have been jailbroken or rooted. Galperin stated that due to competition, more

cybersecurity Computer security (also cybersecurity, digital security, or information technology (IT) security) is a subdiscipline within the field of information security. It consists of the protection of computer software, systems and networks from thr ...

companies will be prompted to follow suit to meet this heightened standard. She has also called on U.S. state and federal officials to arrest and prosecute executives of companies that are developing and selling stalkerwares on charges of hacking.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Galperin, Eva Computer security specialists Cypherpunks Electronic Frontier Foundation people Internet activists Living people Privacy activists San Francisco State University alumni Year of birth missing (living people)