Pakistan-Based Ring Hacks Phones of Indian Army Personnel: Report

A private consortium has claimed that phones of Army personnel, who had downloaded some mobile application related to news, had been compromised by hackers based in Pakistan.

However, Information and Technology department denied any such reports saying that nothing of this had come before them.

"Last year cyber-security researchers at Indian Infosec Consortium (IIC) discovered that large number of Indian defence personal were being targeted by malwares and viruses posing as defence news websites and mobile apps.

"The espionage ring was found to be operated by actors based out of Pakistan," the website of Ground Zero Summit 2015 said.

When contacted the speaker on the subject, IIC CEO Jiten Jain said that based on the code analysis of news mobile applications and websites it was discovered that the operation was running at least over a period of last three years.

"Thousands of mobile phones were affected by these applications. The details were handed over to security agencies about six months ago which promptly sprung in to action and sanitised the affected phones and systems," Jain said.

However, Director General CERT-IN (Computer Emergency Response Team-India) B J Srinath said he was not aware of any such report. "At least I am yet to come across any such report so far," he said.

According to the Consortium, which is a group of ethical hackers who came under one umbrella after the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Pakistan intelligence agencies were able to capture all communication made by officials from their mobile phone like calls and SMS, handling of cameras and videos of the mobile phone remotely without the knowledge of the owner.

Jain said he will be submitting the details of his findings during the forthcoming Ground Zero Summit, a conference of ethical hackers and cyber-security expert, on November 5 to make people aware about possible danger from mobile applications.