In today’s day and age data is everywhere and so is are the competing needs to protect and access personal data and information, such as the text message data on a mobile device other than your own.
There are perfectly legitimate reasons to do so, although some questions may be raised around the ethics of such data access. However, with this being a primarily technical blog, we will set the ethics debate aside and focus on the technical aspects involved with how to get messages from another phone, and view them on your device.
Unsurprisingly, a simple Google search will produce many results offering solutions for monitoring and remote access of messages residing on a mobile device other than your own. The problem is that many of the solutions being offered are unreliable, require significant technical expertise, or result in malware being installed.
Fortunately, there are simpler, reliable methods and applications available as well.
Today we will examine one such method – the mSpy application from mSpyLite.
The mSpy application has quite a full set of interesting features. Not only does it have the ability to monitor text messages from another device, the application also allows the user to monitor such information as the call log, physical location of the device and even the browsing history on the device.
Not only that, but the mSpy application provides the ability to monitor messages beyond simple SMS text. The application supports the monitoring of messages made through such messaging apps as Telegram, WhatsApp, and Facebook Messenger, as well as social media apps such as Instagram and Facebook.
Gaining the ability to access all sorts of data described above may sound like something that would require significant technical expertise and easy access to the subject’s mobile device. However that is not always the case, as we see in this instance, working with mSpy.
The mSpy app is quite easy to install and use. There is no “jailbreak” required. All that’s needed are the iCloud credentials of the target iPhone.
Once the app has been installed and configured, the user interface is very intuitive. Simple and easy-to-read dashboards provide a quick overview of usage by the target device. Everything is shown as handy charts, maps and graphs, so the information is easy to analyze and any patterns become quickly evident.
Something that may concern a user of a monitoring application is whether there is any usage trail left on the target device. In the case of the mSpy application, there is no trail left that would be noticeable through anything but a most stringent forensic examination.
There are no strange icons that pop up on the target device, no unusual battery usage patterns while the application is running, and no slow-down on the processor. The application runs in the background, in stealth mode.
Of course, as with any solution to a common problem, there is a number of competitive products available online, for the purposes of monitoring text messages and general mobile device usage, remotely.
It is outside the scope of this blog post, to cover and compare other monitoring solutions, available on the market. Such comparison would need to be made by the reader.
Fortunately, for the purposes of product evaluation, mSpy provides a 7-day free trial to allow potential users to experiment with the applications, determine the product’s usability and see whether it’s sufficiently easy to use, and whether the product features cover all expected use-cases.
For users who have concerns about potentially not being tech-savvy enough to use this application (despite how easy to use it is) – there is 24-7 technical support provided by the makers of mSpy.
Overall our verdict is that – if you have a legitimate need to monitor mobile device communications remotely, the mSpy application is worth considering and evaluating.