ByPrarthana Mitra
In a video posted on Twitter on Sunday, the Indian Army warned WhatsApp users that Chinese hackers are using the messaging platform to hack into critical infrastructure and governing systems in India.
The cautionary video has been published just a few months after the Intelligence Bureau (IB)advised all soldiers posted on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) against using 42 social media applications including WhatsApp WeChat, Truecaller, Weibo, due to plausible security concerns. The advisory was issued in November 2017, a few months after the resolution of a border stand-off between the two nations over Doklam.
Issued in the interest of national security
The Additional Directorate General of Public Interface, the Indian Army’s official Twitter handle, warned that WhatsApp was the latest platform being deployed by Chinese hackers to spy on Indians. The Chinese use all kinds of platforms to penetrate your digital world, the video posted by the Indian Army stated. WhatsApp groups are a new way of hacking into your system. Chinese numbers starting with +86 barge into your groups and start extracting all the data.
सजग रहे,सतर्क रहें,सुरक्षित रहें।#भारतीयसेना सोशल मीडिया उचित एवं नियमबद्ध एकाउंट को प्रोत्साहित करता है। हैकिंग जोरो पर है, उनके लिए जो असावधान हैं। अपने सोशल मीडिया को हमेशा चेक करें। व्यक्तिगत एवं ग्रुप एकाउंट के बारे में सावधान रहें, सुरक्षित रहें। @DefenceMinIndia @PIB_India pic.twitter.com/YQbdVFsmWe
— ADG PI – INDIAN ARMY (@adgpi) March 18, 2018
The video warns civilians and military personnel alike against sharing confidential and pictures over WhatsApp. Users should also undertake other precautionary measures such as saving contacts by name, checking all groups thoroughly before joining or posting material.
“Destroy the SIM card if you change your number, and delete your WhatsApp on that number,” the army instructed in the video, which was later retweeted by India’s Defense MinistryandInformation and Broadcasting Minister Smriti Irani.
To vouchsafe or violate privacy?
Altaf Halde, Cyber Security Global Business Head atthe cybersecurity consulting firmNetwork Intelligence, told DW that there were plenty of paid tools to gain access to the data mined by WhatsApp, adding that other smartphone applications are equally vulnerable.
The issue of safeguarding privacy for WhatsApp users has been ongoing especially with several charges of data mining against the global messaging service, despite ‘end to end’ encryption of messages and several new security updates. However, after Facebook’s takeover of the firm in 2014, security experts claim that backdoors enabled Facebook and others to intercept and read encrypted WhatsApp messages.
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