A usual method which is applied in urban areas, at powerplants as well as at volcanoes is the DOAS technique. Here a spectrometer is used to measure light at wavelengths from typically 300-350nm in order to obtain the column densities for SO2 using a Long-path setup (Platt and Stutz 2008, Springer, and references therein), in direct-sun configuration (butz et al 2017 Remote sensing of volcanic CO2, HF, HCl, SO2, and BrO in the downwind plume of Mt. Etna) or more usual from spectra of scattered sunlight (see Lübcke et al 2016 Retrieval of absolute SO2 column amounts from scattered-light spectra: implications for the evaluation of data from automated DOAS networks and references therein).
If this is "simple" is left to the interpretation of the reader.
UV satellite (like OMI) has retrievals (multiple algorithms) for SO2 that detects volcanic emission. However, IR satellite (like AIRS) has indicator that can detect volcano activity in the stratosphere.
almost 40 year ago: the "Barringer"
Article Remote SO2 mass flux measurements using COSPEC
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