Cyber bullying and cyber stalking are made possible or easier by social media, messenger services and other apps. They often not only provide the platforms on which the bullying or stalking takes place, they actually also make private user information publicly accessible.

For this reason, we wish to provide you with some general information on this topic, even though the BSI itself is not normally the competent point of contact for this issue. Below we refer to organisations that deal with these issues more comprehensively and can provide further assistance in specific cases. Contact these organisations if you are experiencing cyber bullying or cyber stalking.

Although information technology is indeed used in both cases in order to ostracise or stalk people, technical security measures can only affect these behaviours to a limited extent. Even those who protect their devices or accounts securely can fall victim to cyber bullying or cyber stalking.

Cyber bullying

Cyber bullying refers to various forms of defamation, harassment, pressurising and coercion of people or companies via the internet, for example via e-mail, messengers or social media. The victim is attacked or mocked using aggressive or insulting text-based messages, compromising photos or videos, which are published in social networks, for example.

Young people are particularly at risk. Their peers may not know that cyber bullying can be a criminal act or may not be aware of the existence of personal rights, such as the right to one's own image. "One's own image" does not refer to copyright here, though this also applies, of course. It refers to the fact that if I take a photo of another person, I normally cannot publish it without the consent of the person in the photo.

Children and young people may not be aware what massive and long-lasting damage cyber bullying may cause. For example, videos published on YouTube and photos shared on Facebook can spread with a speed and reach unimaginable just a few years ago, when bullying was confined to the immediate social environment, like colleagues, classmates or the school playground.

In some cases, cyber bullying is associated with what is referred to as identity theft. The perpetrator may for example attempt to elicit the victim's log-in data for a user profile on a social network and take over the profile. Content is then posted or sent in messages, supposedly in the name of the victim, that is intended to damage the victim's reputation.

A phenomenon directly often associated with cyber bullying is "doxing", which is the systematic gathering and collating of personal data on individuals from public sources. The personal data of the victim may then be published in order to compromise or threaten them. Just the psychological effect of having this data made public often has severe consequences for the victim. In addition, data may be used by experts in order to hack into online accounts and then perpetrate identity theft.

Cyber stalking

Cyber stalking (also referred to as digital stalking or online stalking) refers to stalking, pursuing or monitoring a person via digital means. This occurs in relationships in particular, and can, for example, be perpetrated by both current or former partners. In the process, it is not just the victim's information published on social media that is used, but also information that can be gathered from "stalkerware", which are programs on the victim's smartphone that can be used to their gather information.

Similar to spyware, such apps can be used to transfer chat messages, SMS texts or the location of the person to the computer of the perpetrator. In addition, apps that are actually intended to help locate the smartphone if it gets lost can be abused for private spying purposes. Generally speaking, the perpetrator only requires a short period of access to the device they wish to monitor. After that, the victim has no way of realising that they are being spied on.